Slow Down Summer

I am in a panic.  I feel like my summer is flying by.  Usually summer is our time to slow down and just spend lazy days and evenings together as a family.  This summer, I feel as though it's even busier than the school year was.

Almost every weekend we have had a baseball tournament.  No, actually, I'm pretty sure it's been EVERY weekend, not 'almost every.'  Dance has not slowed down at all either.  Granted, we are not driving to classes five days a week but there have been competitions, dance outs, etc.

I have had meetings about the Spain trip.  There are fundraisers for it as well.  This weekend alone, we have a tournament both days (possibly three days), a dance out on Saturday, a graduation party, the fundraiser on Sunday (which means us cooking and serving at a spaghetti supper) and who knows what I'm forgetting.

I have yet to make an appointment for my son's senior pictures, which have to be done this summer.  My daughter needs an appointment at the eye doctor, which I forgot to make in the spring and an appointment at the dermatologist, just to keep an eye on a mole she has had since birth that I like to get checked every year.  My son needs a follow up at the cardiologist for a heart murmur that has developed but it is supposed to be done when baseball has ended.  That has yet to happen.  We all have dentist appointments, there is the monthly orthodontist appointment and again, who knows what else I'm forgetting.

When the kids were young, we relaxed in the summer.  It was our time to hang in the pool, take day trips, have dinner on the deck.  It was lazy and easy.  I don't know if it's where I am these days, emotionally, or what the problem is but I am completely overwhelmed.  I keep thinking that it's because I am in such a weird place in my own relationship and life that these little things that moms just have to do seem so much bigger to me.

My son has yet to pick one college he wants to visit.  This summer is the time that should have happened.  I have stopped having the conversation.  He has to do this on his own.  I have tried to guide him and give him the help I wish I had had when I was getting ready to go off to college but he is not receptive at all to any advice.  He will be 18 years old in November.  He is a young man and needs to do these things on his own.  He is going to end up where he puts himself.  If it's the wrong choice, then it will be his mistake and that's ok.  He can always transfer once he figures things out a bit more.

I know these things are not a big deal.  I know that in the big picture, they are easily completed.  I just don't like all of this taking place in summer.  I want my old life.  I want the life I had when summer meant waking up early in the morning and going to the beach all day.  Then I would come home, eat supper and go back to the beach all night.  There were no activities or appointments.  I loved it.

It's a different world now.  I wonder what my friends with small children will experience as their kids grow older.   Will things go back to the way they were?  Or will the world just continue to be busier and busier until every minute of a kid's life is filled with structured activities?  I certainly hope the future lies in the former.