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If your hair was bristling on the back of your neck when you read the title of this post don’t worry, you were not alone. I received a catalog in the mail the other day and I started hyperventilating. The front cover had children decked in brand new hip clothes and stylish haircuts and they were running excitedly back to school. No doubt, my boys are excited to move up a grade and be an even bigger “man on campus”, but there is nothing that is more exciting then summer…without school. It feels like it was just yesterday that my boys were singing Alice Cooper’s song, “School’s Out For Summer”.

As I flipped through the catalog, I had an image of the boys returning to school with choppy haircuts, courtesy from their mom, and hand me down threadbare clothes patched together with my, unopened, three year old sewing machine. Boys will be boys, and I have learned to save our money and not buy new clothes that will have holes in the knees after being worn five times. Perhaps we will start a shabby chic trend in grade school.

Thankfully, the calendar reassures me that there is still another twenty one days left before school starts, giving us a little more time to enjoy the summer groove that we have all finally gotten into.

As parents, we are all different in the way we embrace the summer and respectively the way we bring it to a close. June is always a welcome season when the hectic schedule of school and sports finally comes to an end. As the snow melts from the mountain peaks and the air begins to warm, my boys and I quickly shed our winter skin and quickly adapt to the nonchalant swing of summer. We lounge around in our pajamas until the mood compels us to prepare for our action-packed afternoons of swimming, bike riding and hiking. Actually, lounging sounds good in theory but in my family, if the boys don’t get out of the house by 11:00am they will get restless and start destroying the house.

When July arrives, I review the summer activity list that I made during the cold winter months and I begin to transfer the list into my daily planner, lest we should forget our favorites. Summer accelerates into August and high anxiety sets in. My husband tells me that I need to stop panicking about the future and enjoy the present. I try to listen but I know that these days will flash by faster than green grass through a goose. I am determined to have the boys jump off of Strawberry Rock into the refreshingly cold Frying Pan River, take the gondola to the top of Aspen Mountain to hike along the ridge in the wildflowers and listen to the bluegrass music, go fishing and build boats to float down the creek passing through our yard.

My husband is right, I must enjoy each day as it comes and so tonight I will enforce the evening family walk and we will bask in the sun’s warm setting rays before the autumn chill sets in. I will also wake the boys up late at night, wrap them up in blankets and bring them outside to lay under the velvety tapestry of the summer sky and sleepily search for shooting stars.http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/195652main_1.jpg

Many of us have twenty one or more days to mentally prepare ourselves, and our children, for the impending day where we will all have to get back on that strict routine of school, sports, homework, dinner and then the triple B’s; bath, books and bed. But for now, the arrival of August merely provides us with a warning that it is time to dive into summer with a vengeance and enjoy nature’s great offerings before the month of September rolls in. So jump in and enjoy the splash!

About This Post

It’s back-to-school time, and this year Sprite and TwitterMoms have partnered with bloggers like me to share back-to-school tips and tricks, advice, stories and more! Visit Sprite’s back-to-school channel on TwitterMoms to get helpful ideas, learn how to survive the back to school rush, seek out advice from other TwitterMoms and join the conversation. You can learn more about donating your My Coke Rewards Points to support your local school, how to enter for a chance to win some Back to School cash, check out recipes, or even play some fun games. Here’s to a successful and stress-free back to school season from Sprite and TwitterMoms!