My least favorite season ...

Not Summer itself, I like parts of Summer.

What I like least about summer, though, is School Planning Season.

Most home-schoolers I know are deep into School Planning right now. Some are blogging out loud their thoughts and curriculum purchases, likes and dislikes. Some are taking days alone to plan and schedule.

I have to admit, the whole thing gives me a deep sinking feeling every year.

Not only am I not a planner, by nature, but the whole task we've taken on - to school our children at home - is a daunting, overwhelming one. Oh, sure, some things are easier. Like not having to get everyone up, fed, dressed, and presentable at a specific early time. If that was the only reason to home-school, I would trade it all. But it's not. Each time we've reconsidered, we've come back to believing this is where we're supposed to be, as a family.

But that doesn't make thinking about next year -- even if I already know what we're doing and have purchased it -- any easier. Well, maybe a little. I still don't want to think about it. We're still wrapping up last year. Still trying to figure out what we're doing this Summer. Still trying to learn new chores and make them routine, and get the rest and fun we need and expect in the hot and sunny days of Summer. Next School Year seems like it shouldn't be looming on the horizon just yet.

Maybe it's because, growing up, Summer seemed to be a wondrous dream-land of a lack of responsibilities and schedules, at least from a child's perspective. Maybe there were some chores, and certainly the swim team I was on took some scheduling, but I didn't do the scheduling, I just hopped on a bike or into a car and went when I was told. And the rest, so far as I remember, was just play. And oh, how we looked forward to Summer. That residual dreamy promise of Summer still crops up at the end of the school year.

But now, as a parent, even the wonders of fun take scheduling, planning, discipline, and work. Finding swim clothes and enough towels, or the right park bag, or remembering to pack the lunch and have the right groceries for that packable lunch. And in the midst of all that different-every-day-fumbling, the regular chores march on, relentlessly.

I think I need a Summer break from our Summer before I even think about school.