It’s day 6 of summer vacation and within the first hour I heard the dreaded “Mom, I’m bored”.

So far we have gone to the library, though we haven’t actually read any of the books, we have camped in the back yard and we have been to the park 8 times.

I’m the designated mom on the block where all the kids hang out. I’m not the only mom who is home during the day but I am the only mom who isn’t crazy, or at least who other parents don’t think is too crazy that they won’t leave their kids with me. Yesterday my neighbor saw my daughter, the neighbor girl on the other side of our house and me in the back yard, she asked if her grand daughter could come over and play for a couple of hour while she and her mother ran a few errands. I said sure, the more the merrier, and told her to come on over. The grandma said they would be home around 3pm. No problem. That was at noon, before anyone had lunch apparently.

The girl was picked up at 8pm.

Now before you go all “establish some boundaries, girl” on me, let me explain. These girls were playing with my daughter which meant I didn’t have to come up with entertainment for her. At least that was the idea. I set up the tent for them which was good for, surprisingly, 20 minutes. The girls sat in the tent and told ghost stories. My daughter, who is 6, was captivated by these stories and actually sat still for the whole thing. Of course she would be up all night but at the time I didn’t care.

After eating anything and everything the girls decided to get some chalk and draw pictures on the sidewalk. My daughter, unlike me, has her boundaries firmly in place and when another child chalked in her space all hell broke loose. Tears, threats, accusations ensued. I tried to mediate the problem by using tears, threats and accusations. Eventually I went to the local Walgreen’s and bought some tattoos for the girls.

What is it about toys for boys and girls? All the outdoor toys for girls are bubbles and chalk. Boys get guns and baseball bats and flying discs. Why haven’t they made a plastic Uzi in pink? I’d buy it. The tattoos went over very well. All three little girls covered themselves with tramp stamps and suggestively placed tatts. I wasn’t the least bit concerned what their parents would say since no one bothered to leave money, food or activities with their kids when they dumped them at my house for 10 hours. I’d have taken them all to the local tattoo parlor for the real thing if I thought they might be slowed down a bit by the pain of the tattoo gun.

Stanley almost caught a bird. It was an injured, baby bird but he almost actually caught something. This excited all the girls to no end and with their vivid imagination they decided that Stanley had rabies and he needed to be quarantined in the tent. Stanley didn’t seem to mind and it gave me the opportunity to shoo the bird out of the yard. Had he gone after a squirrel or two I would have been pleased as punch but no he went after a defenseless little robin whose mother was none too pleased and dive bombed all of us for the rest of the afternoon.

We have a severe squirrel problem. Seems the woman who lived in the house before me liked the squirrels and fed them peanuts. My lawn is filled with nothing but little holes from these damn squirrels looking for the peanuts from three years ago. I hate them, the neighbors hate them and when I was at the hardware store over the weekend I noticed they had a wrist rocket or a sling shot with a brace that goes over your forearm to give that extra torque. I haven’t actually hit one yet, in fact when the stone lands near them they think I’m feeding them and go to it. I don’t really want to hurt a squirrel and I really don’t want to kill one because then I don’t know how to dispose of the body. I just want to scare the little fuckers into someone else’s yard.

72 days to go.

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