How To Organize Children For The Summer

I read an article about "How to organize your kids this summer" - well, actually, I started reading the article.

Once I discovered the tips were not how to file them in color-coded folders, I kind of took a pass on the rest...

It just seemed like too much work for me.

Special buckets for outside toys. Why? Our toys have no special designated titles as 'inside' or 'outside.'

At our house, if it is to big to get in through the door, it is outside, everything else is a crap shoot.

Pre-make all your rainy day activities so you are prepared for foul weather. This sounds like a mini-Christmas as far as the time needed to generate such a project.

"Make your own play-doh?" "Shop ahead for sequins, glitter, glue, construction paper, beads & the like. Store items in a special container that you can put away and only bring out for inclement weather."

Huh?

First of all, I don't get to shop alone. If it goes into the cart, it is opened in the backseat of the car, or in the driveway. After I gather, sweep up & otherwise manage to clean the remnants of glitter, beads etc., who has the energy to place the snippets into an organized container? (Which by the way, the youngest has turned into a fort for his Lambie & friends, so getting it back will be no simple task.)

Second of all (or is this third?), if I did get to shop alone, that would be my time to get personal items such as bras & tampons (because the fitting room experience is beyond words, and the tampons themselves run the risk of being dispensed in the car or driveway), or fragile items, such as 'indestructable plastic party cups' (which the dogs will shred all thru the backyard after the kids have left them heedlessly on the lawn).

Generate a schedule to simplify your days and to provide structure for the children. They have that already:

* Fill up on sugar, both at home and at neighbor's/friend's houses.

* Litter food & drink wrappers about neighborhood.

* Run around frantically, making as much noise as possible. Irritating any hearing or sighted being within a 100 yard radius.

* Come in and whine that there is nothing to do.

* Stomp upstairs, mumbling.

* Stomp back down, begging for food.

Repeat until parent passes out, or darkness falls, whichever comes first.

Well, at least the wrappers provides a trail for those nighttime child scavenger hunts.

....But I still am looking for a "how to" that will really organize my children.

Or maybe I am just going to have to put myself in the blue folder, and call it a Summer.