For real, I used to go into depression at this time of the year with the prospect of summer vacation ahead of me.  The rest of the year, we had the 3 SKs every weekend and whenever they were out of school.  But summer meant endless days.

And yes, the year we signed everyone up for a week at camp, SD managed to get out of it with her medical emergency, the start of her periods.

Shockingly, when they all moved in full time, it wasn't so bad.  It was the back and forth that caused most of the trouble.

I'm going to drink a glass of wine for all the SMs staring down 3 months of summer vacay.

of summer, Monday - Friday. The first two weeks she will be home with me while I work from home because SD's school gets out earlier than schools here get out. SD is a well behaved kid, BUT no way she could be home with me 24/7 while I work from home and DH just switched to a closer job so he doesn't have the time to take off either. DH will take her to camp before he goes to work and I will pick her up when I am done work or could have 1.5 to myself on days I want before going to get her. 

Originally this summer we were debating about getting a Nitendo Switch for SD and everyone to play when she is here because she likes video games, BUT since it sounds like she has unlimited access to video games/electronics at BM's, we changed our mind. Luckily we never said a word to SD about it. Instead she is excited about a sand box coming.

SS11 arrives on Saturday for a two week visit to kick off summer. We are taking SS11 and DD15mos to Florida for 10 days. Then DH will spend every other Saturday in June driving 8 hours roundtrip to pick SS up for two one week visits. I hate that all of June will be transporting SS. It's a lot of work to see SS for 4 weeks non-consecutively, especially when there is such a long distance roundtrip. But such is life when BM won't allow DH to see his kid for more than 2 weeks at a time. 

Usually, SS plays Nintendo Switch or Xbox for a few hours each day until DH yanks it out of his hands and forces him to go outside, where he kicks a ball around and complains about how bored he is. The preteen years are fun; the kids lack all creativity, motivation, or sense of fun. 

But, after the first week of July, we will be skid free until Christmas... unless we drive down to BM's state for a weekend visit this Fall (which is always an awkward situation).

Finally! There is only one skid left and she is 17. Her dad is encouraging her to get a job this summer. I guess she can't have a job during the schoolyear because she does AP classes and they take up more time. So if she does get a job, it will be her first. 

SD17 is the only SD out of the 3 that is reasonable and seems to be growing up instead of staying an infant, mentally.

I don't think she will want to come over more than once a week, for dinner. Hopefully, her older sister who is almost 20 will not decide to accompany her. If she does, I will want her to stop acting paranoid and secretive, long enough to have a nice dinner where she can answer questions like "So, what have you been doing for fun lately?" without snapping and growling "THAT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!" 

So yeah, I am looking forward to a fairly peaceful summer. 

I remember the summer breaks.  Fun times.  Not.  I worked at the time and made it a point to NOT take any days off while SS was out of school.  The only exception was if he was with BM.  I would take a day off then. He behaved well around me and DH, but could be annoying.  If he was around and school was out, he'd stay with MIL.  We didn't have anyone else who could watch him and he wanted to stay with her anyway.  He would play with SIL's kids, who were pretty much raised by MIL.  MIL let them run wild so of course he wanted to stay with her.  

It was my last straw. 

One week after skid got out for summer, I made hasty plans to gtfo the following week. 

He was horrible in ALL ways possible.