I Hate Summer Vacation.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say it: summer vacation is stupid.

Think about it...in the United States at least, summer vacation for schoolchildren was created out of necessity. The kids were needed during this time of year to help out on the farm during the harvest. Ma and Pa needed young Johnny and Gertrude to work the fields and pitch in with all the extra canning and whatnot.

News flash: we haven't lived in a mainly agrarian society for a looooooooong time. And I don't know how to find accurate statistics, but I would assume that there are more families in which both parents work outside the home than not. So why do we continue with this summer vacation thing? Aside from teaching, I can't think of any work situation that offers nine consecutive weeks of vacation (the thought is laughable, actually).

Why do we have to force moms and dads to scramble every spring to find appropriate "camps" for the kids and then shell out $200-$250 per week, per kid, to keep them safe and occupied during work hours? It's insane. It's absurd.

Who is perpetuating this nonsense? I know the teachers' unions are powerful in this country, but I can't imagine they're powerful enough to keep holding the rest of the parent population hostage like this.

And it's not like I'm totally against giving kids a break: they're kids, for goodness sake, and they need a chance to play before they have to join us grown-ups in the rat race. But a two-and-a-half month vacation is totally unrealistic in modern society. How about breaking it up into a few three- or four-week blocks or something? I think we could all happily deal with that, right? How do we get this beach ball rolling?

(I still have more to say about summer vacation. Stay tuned.)

Living in Fear of Poop

Please tell me I'm not the only mother of a three-year-old living in constant fear of him having an "accident" at school.

Yes, I'm one of "those" moms, sending my just-barely potty-trained kid to his first year of Child Must Be Toilet Trained preschool. Today is Day Two, and just like yesterday, I'm dreading the possibility of picking him up and seeing him wearing...insert blood-curdling scream...The Change of Clothes.

If I see him in tan shorts and a red shirt this afternoon, it's all good until tomorrow.

You see, potty training my older son was such a nightmare that I prematurely declared little Pie successfully trained even though he hasn't pooped in the toilet to date. I mean, consider the facts, and hopefully you'll agree: during the day, Pie pees in the toilet almost 100% of the time. By the grace of God, he only poops once a day, after breakfast, so I just leave him in his nighttime Pull-Up until he stinks it up, and then we're ready to tackle the day. There. I call that potty trained.

Well, except on days like today. We all got up a little late, and I wasn't able to shove enough breakfast foods down Pie's little gullet (you know, to get things moving) before we had to leave for school. Sigh. It's not like I'm for "stool withholding"--but I'm just hoping he can hold it until he gets home. I'll gladly clean up poopy underpants just to keep myself from being labeled "that mom who can't potty train her kids" (Bug had the same teacher last year...and he had, um, problems).

All right, the hour of truth is fast approaching. Please help me pray for tan shorts.