The end of school and beginning of summer are exciting times for kids. My own kids start counting down the days on or around June first, marking each square of the calendar with an X, as enthusiastically as though time were marching towards their birthday or a trip.

So June will come to an end and school will come to an end and after all the screaming and shouting and eating of celebratory ice cream, we will look at each other with big smiles on our faces and ask….

Now what?

Because as much as I get tired of making lunches and setting alarms and hustling and herding children out the door each morning, school offers a much-needed routine for all of us. The kids need to learn and play and be stimulated, and I have to work.

But with school over, the kids will still need to learn and play and be stimulated, and that will be all up to me, my friends. I will be the one to keep them busy and happy and entertained and supervised. And I’m not complaining about this – I actually adore my children’s company, and made some pretty huge life changes to ensure that I could spend more time in it.

Part of our plan; of our huge life changes, were to allow me to go from working full-time to working freelance. And in nearly two years, I have grown my freelance business to a comfortable, if not always stable, roster of work that I must continue to nurture, with deadlines that must continue to be met. During the school year, even with my youngest not yet in school fulltime, I can accommodate my work obligations and mesh them well with my family obligations. It’s been great, actually.

And now all of my hard-earned balance goes away for two and a half months. I have a desire to ignore everything and just have fun for the summer, but that’s not very good for business. It’s also not very good for my kids. Surely I can teach them that my work is important without ignoring them, leaving them to be entertained by the television or going broke by constantly promising, five more minutes and then we can go for an ice cream!

So I have to get creative. Luckily, Chatham-Kent offers some very wonderful, affordable options for keeping kids busy this summer. We will be taking advantage of several camps in the area; there will be swimming lessons and time spent with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. I will work as diligently as possible while my kids are occupied with these activities, but I’ll have to do a bit of work when my kids are not at camp or otherwise engaged as well.

Last summer, I gave my kids a challenge: use up every piece of Lego we have in the creation of awesome things. We have a lot of Lego, like enough to fill a 50-litre storage bin, some of it dating back to my husband’s childhood. And they did it – on rainy days, on days when it was too hot to play outside and at times when I just needed an hour or two to work, the kids built a Lego universe in the basement.

But what kind of alternative to my time can I offer them this year? “Go outside and play” is great, but not always possible. I don’t think they’d be as excited about the Lego challenge for a second year, and asking them to organize the Tupperware cupboard would take all summer, yes, but I don’t think the task would be met with much enthusiasm.

Perhaps I’ll purchase a book filled with crafts that the kids can do on their own, and challenge them to create everything in it. I could have them devise, design, write, produce and perform a puppet show. Maybe I’ll buy a 1000 piece puzzle and see if two months is long enough to figure out that it’s too challenging for an eight year old and a five year old.

Or maybe I’ll just get into the habit of writing at night again, once everybody is safely and happily tucked into bed. Maybe I’ll trade the need for routine for the need to laugh, love and be together. Because there will always be more work to do, but there won’t be many more summers when my children want to spend their long, lazy days with me.