The Sound Of Summer

If asked you to describe the sound of summer what would you say?  Water splashing, children laughing, birds singing, crickets & grasshoppers doing whatever it is they do.

Mine is children arguing, the four year old whingeing, the nine year old playing minecraft and shouting on his headphones to his friends. Or he's having a water fight and the four year old is screaming and I'm moaning my washing is getting wet.  The dog is barking at the birds in the tree's and next door's dog who also happens to be barking. MrM and I saying "It's so hot" every five minutes.

When you are a working parent, you are very limited to what you can do in the summer holidays.  MrM was recently made redundant so there's also the money issue. We have a dog so we always have an excuse to get out to the park, except, it's too hot in the middle of the day for the dog, the kids moan we are walking too far and if we get to a playground we can't take the dog in, we don't want to leave him tied up outside for dog nappers to snaffle him off.

We have Merlin passes, but when it's one adult and two children of differing ages that presents it's own problems. The four year old can't go on the big rides, nor does she want to. The nine year old can't go on the big rides alone and doesn't want to go on the tiddler rides.  Catch 22.

I've booked a trip to go and see "Aliens In Underpants" at the theatre.  I've told MrM to take them to the library for the summer reading challenge and the Monday morning arts & craft session. I've recommended taking them to the cinema kids club.  

What do you do with your kids in the summer holidays before you run out of steam and the will to live?