Summertime and the Livin' is Easy

Yesterday the Twist family officially declared summer break and ordered the younger half to do nothing but read comic books, go swimming and watch cartoons.  Lest you think the older half has lost its ever loving mind, which is a distinct possibility after the last three months worth of stress, you must keep in mind several things.  First of all, as a homeschooling/roadschooling family we do school year round.  We even had school on Christmas Eve eve; according to the boys this was positively Hitlerian.  We do year round school for several reasons, the foremost being that if boys are kept busy and on some type schedule they tend to get in less trouble!  #2 makes boredom sound like child abuse and we've discovered that if we let him get bored then we probably deserve whatever he gets himself into!

Side note:  seconds after I put the period on the preceding sentence Donald called me to look in the bed of the pickup.  What looks like a huge pile of dog vomit with a homemade sword sticking out of it turns out be a collected mountain of tree sap.  Take a guess who put it there and who will be cleaning it out!  Welcome to my world!

The second reason we do year round school is that it allows us to take a day or week off when we it is convenient for us.  We are not at the mercy of a school calendar which is a nice benefit.  A third reason is that it feeds my need to play school!  I used to "teach" my sister in our bedroom, went off to college to get a license to do it legally and now I get to play school with my sons.  Love it!

We have never declared an official summer break in our two and a half years of homeschooling.  Generally we just took leave with Donald whenever the Navy let him get away.  Yesterday the boys probably spent about four hours watching cartoons, two hours swimming, several hours of eating, two hours at VBS with friends, and then, coming home at nine decided to turn the television on once more to watch Supernanny and the Food Network.  We generally don't turn the tv on every day and they each get two hours of combined computer/Wii time every week.  We never even bother with cable in a sticks and bricks but it comes with our RV site here.  So you can see how dissipated they become when left to their own judgement.  #1 had the good sense to cry uncle and put himself to bed at ten but #2 would have kept going, falling asleep on the couch if we let him.  I was the responsible adult and stayed up until 11 at which time I said enough is enough.  Even #2 admitted to being tired and didn't even read in bed, something they do every night in their plea to stay up later.  How can I turn down reading in bed?

I really thought they would sleep in this morning.  Au contraire!  They popped out of bed at 7:00 in a quest for more cartoons!  I'm trying not to be fatalistic but I admit to horrible images of them flunking out of college because they have unbridled access to the cartoon network, sugared cereal and beer.  We may have declared summer break but we never said how long it would last!