Let the Summer Fun Begin

There have been multiple times this week when I have sat down to write my Wednesday article. Each time, I have gotten a few paragraphs into writing it only to have something interrupt my writing flow. Each time, I closed my laptop with a sigh and a slight feeling of failure. Each time, I felt critical of myself for not being able to pull my thoughts together quicker, crank out an article, and hit publish.

Well, it is Thursday night on my side of the world, and I still have not managed to move past the rambling thoughts in the three different drafts (all on varying topics) sitting in my posts page on Substack.

My margins in motherhood were smaller than usual this week, and I didn’t have my typical windows for writing. Also, with the half-week of school for my kids before summer break began, and getting ready to jump into travel and solo parenting for the next month, my brain has been more preoccupied.

So even though this week’s article will be much shorter than usual, I still wanted to show up and post before the kids and I leave Beijing for the summer to go visit family in the States.

First Day of Summer Break

Today was our first full day of summer break, and it was a busy one! My husband spent several hours at the doctor’s for his annual health check. We’ve tried to take advantage of this while living in Bangkok and Beijing.

Many international hospitals in these cities offer various annual health check packages that include a full panel of blood tests and other lab tests, EKG, chest X-ray, abdominal ultrasound, and more, with additional options based on gender and age. During our years living in Bangkok, we had several friends who caught cancer in its early stages while having one of these annual health screens done.

Coming from working as a nurse in the States, the first time I heard that this was a thing, and heard how affordable it was, I couldn’t believe it. I just keep hoping that comprehensive preventative care like this could become a more standard practice in the States.

Tangent aside, while my husband was at the doctor’s, the kids had jump-started their morning by helping out with chores around the house. They were motivated to do extra work to earn some spending money. After a few hours of cleaning and feeling much better about the condition of our apartment before we leave for the summer, we headed out to play with some neighborhood friends for a few hours.

Hot and sweaty, they crashed in the living room while I began to prep an early dinner.

Summer Reading Challenge

After prepping some food, I sat down with my 6-year-old son (who just finished Kindergarten!!!). When he finished his first book, we talked about our reading challenges for the summer, and each set a number.

We designated some pages in notebooks for each of us so we can keep track of how many books we read this summer.

For me, my goal is to read six books this summer. My daughter hopes to read 10 chapter books. My son is trying to read 50, because all of the books on his level are pretty small, and he can easily knock out more than one book a day.

My daughter wasn’t too excited about the book options she had at home, and since we are traveling internationally, we had told her she couldn’t bring the books she had checked out from her school library for the summer.

I’m hoping we can visit my parents’ local library within the first day or two after we land and load up on stacks of books! I’m also really hoping that their library has a fun reading challenge that the kids could participate in. I think it would be good for them to see that it isn’t just their mom who likes to do reading challenges during school breaks.

Cutting Back on Screentime

This summer, I will be cutting back on screentime. It has been 1-2 years since I have seen my family, and I want to do everything I can to be present and soak up time with them while we are visiting.

Because of this, I won’t be trying to keep up with writing weekly articles on Substack. If I have a window of time open up where I can write a short article, I’ll be sure to post it. But I’m not going to try to create space to be able to write and publish articles.

I’m bringing my journal, so if article ideas or reflections stir in my mind, I will write them down in my notebook. But I may just give those thoughts more time to simmer and stew before typing them out on my laptop.

That’s All for Now

On that note of reducing screentime, my pillow is calling my name. And I have a full to-do list of packing and prep that I need to do tomorrow.

I look forward to reading articles as I’m able, and would love to hear what you have planned for you and your family for the summer.

Also, if you have any book recommendations, let me know!

I’m always looking for good books to read.