No. 140: 5 Steps to Creating a Summer Routine that Works for You, Not Against You

In ten years of motherhood, I've learned from my mistakes

It’s officially Summer here at Atogwe HQ and if you have kids or were a teen when I was a teen, I hope the High School Musical, “summer. summer. summer” whisper just snuck into your brain. There’s an endless stream of energy humming through the walls at this point of break—the question, “what are we doing today?!” spills out of my children’s mouths the moment their feet reach the bottom step each morning and years ago, I dreaded this part.

I felt like all it took to prep for Summer was finishing my cute little Bucket List decorated with stickers, bubble letters and seventeen too many ideas. I wanted to leave the Summer completely rested and restored as a result of slow, sleepy days with zero structure. Easy. I also wanted to tackle six house projects we’d been putting off, ending the Summer with a house that could be mistaken for a Home Edit photoshoot. Not too much to ask. I wanted to move the ball on a few big work goals with “all this extra time.” And, of course, I wanted to soak up the bonding time as a family with all my children at my feet all day long. Bubbles and slip n’ slides and road trips and late nights. Four conflicting, enormous goals prompted zero red flags. My brain put together our Family Bucket List, the work of a true lunatic, and truly thought “this will be it, the Best Summer Ever™.”

Year after year, I took the microscope to my plans to see where I went wrong come August. I felt exhausted, disappointed, bored, overwhelmed. It took too many Mom Summers to realize that Summer is truly just another two and a half months. While it does contain some inherent magic, there is no wizardry. Failing to set realistic expectations for your Summer and thus, failing to plan for those precious months to come to be will leave you with the same frustration every single time. There is a loose five step system that helps build the foundation for a break that looks like what I envision in my head.

There are so many things outside of our control, this will always be true. But when I close my eyes and picture Summer, it looks like laying on the couch with all my kids, each of us reading our own book underneath one blanket. It looks like making jam and slathering sunscreen at track practice, grilled peaches and my mother-in-law’s garden. It sounds like laughter and fireworks, audiobooks and camp songs. It smells like smores and bubble bath, pico de gallo and fresh cut grass. My goal every year is to leave this break feeling as nostalgic and satisfied as I do right now, imagining it—this is the “how.”

Decide What Matters to You and What Doesn’t

This is a crucial first step. Some of us are hardwired and unmoving in our “isms.” Line up ten “No” moms and ten “Yes” moms and they will likely still have different things they prioritize and couldn’t care less about. Here, at the start of Summer, decide what your things are in order to set right expectations for everyone in the home. Do you care if the sink is perfectly clean every night? Will it bother you if the kids are loud all day every day? Is it important to you that chores are done at a specific time, or at all? Is there a screen-time limit you want to implement or reinforce or is Summer a free for all when it comes to tech? We can avoid what threatens to be the inevitable headache by asking ourselves questions like this and praying about what we need to implement and what we need to let go of.

Set Your Realistic Summer Goals Early