The Internet is a wonderful thing. It’s a brilliant thing, really. You can travel virtually to anywhere you want to go and you can find answers to any questions you have. Questions such as –

“What can I cook with just hamburger, tomatoes, and rice?”

“How to safely get motor oil off my kids face.”

“My kid just poured his bowl of cereal on my laptop. What are the chances that my laptop can be repaired?”

“Help, my cat refuses to eat anything but Jell-O.”

And recently, now that it is summer – “Things to do with kids this summer.”

With the luxury of the Internet, I often feel as if I need to follow other parent’s suggestions for clever things to do for a fun summer with kids. I admit that many things I read make my brain smile. Many things I read spark my internal creative wires. And I find myself wanting to bookmark 50 different websites so I can go back after the kids are in bed at night and start making notes and writing a supply list of things I need in order to do each of these projects with my kids.

This feeling is called; pressure.

We feel obligated to not let our kids be the ones left out of all the creative fun that other kids are going to have.

This feeling is called; stress.

We feel the rising pressure in our stomach to figure out what to buy, what craft to do, what activity to go to, what to do, when to do it, and how we are going to gather enough momentum to actually get it done.

I call foul.

I belong to the “old school” type of parenting. It is summer break for the kids and we have absolutely nothing planned out. Our days consist of waking up when we wake up, eating cereal for breakfast when we are hungry and watching cartoons. Then, the kids go outside and play in the dirt and grass. They climb trees. They ride bikes. They get dirty. They skin their knees sometimes. And the most important thing they do is get bored.

It is amazing how the creative juices are visible when kids get bored, isn’t it? Cutting off the T.V and unplugging video games causes all sorts of genius behavior. I have seen the most beautiful drawings and Lego construction during summer. I have heard the most complex sibling conversations that make me say “Who ARE these children” during summer.

When they get bored, I finally see who they really are as people.

This is how we have the best summer ever. Simply by just letting it happen the way it happens.