How's your summer going?

Does anyone else have trouble filling the long hours of summer with your children?  I love my children and I like being with them but I find myself at a loss to come up with "activities" to do with them so that they aren't losing precious gray matter in front of the TV.  Let me rephrase that, I find myself "unmotivated" to find activities to do with my children.  24/7 with a 6 year old and 10 year old is just wearing on the psyche.  I'd just like to sit and veg out too.  That would be fine with my daughter.  She likes reading and drawing and crafty things.  My son, even though he CAN play hours of Wii and watch TV like the most seasoned pro, needs to run!  I can tell when he's getting restless (as the 3rd or 20th? episode of iCarly starts).  He starts beating the bean bag chair or throwing it around.  The pool is a good bet but even then my son doesn't have as many friends at the pool as my daughter and so I'm his playmate.  A very deficient playmate.

Every spring I walk that thin line between over and under scheduling camps for my kids.  On the one hand it's nice to have nothing that you HAVE to do.  It's nice to have time to play with friends, read a book, swim and hang out.  On the other hand, if all your kids friends are on vacation or at camp, summer can be a lonely time. So, I sign them up for some camps.

This past spring, I asked my son what camps he was interested in and he really wasn't interested in many.  Last year he told me he was done with camp.  I told him that contrary to what he thought, he'd just begun a long life of summer camps.  (Done with camp?  OK then I guess I'm done with sanity!)  My daughter, on the other hand, would do almost any kind of camp that can be dreamed up (except basketball camp).  Thus we come to this week, this summer with my daughter overcamped and my son GROSSLY undercamped.

A couple of summers ago, we had Home Camp.  We made tie dye t-shirts, we did science experiments and ambitious (for me) art projects.  We went on educational and fun outings.  I tried to muster the energy for that this summer and I haven't been as successful.  I've been getting up early to walk most days of the week and I find that the combination of waking early and the walk leaves me super tired by 2pm.  I'm hoping this all part of the recovery process but my real fear is that it's just me getting older and I'll never again have the same energy for parenting.  This makes me sad for my son who really needs a more energetic Mom.  I see some other mothers who seem to have endless reserves of patience and creativity.  How do they do it?  How can I get my mothering MOJO back?

So next spring when I'm scheduling camps for my kids, I think I'll do one week on, one week off.  Hopefully I'll be able to gather my energy while they're in camp for the weeks when they're not.