Oh, the lazy days of summer......

It's official, Julie McCoy has left the building......she up and packed her bags, got a drink with Gopher and took the first train out of here........all that's left after this whirl wind of a summer is an exhausted, pickled liver attached to a slightly heavier & squishier version of me. It's not that I didn't have a fun summer, I did. It's not that there weren't plenty of vacations, pool days, beach trips and whatnot.....I am just done. I am done being the cruise director....the go-to-girl for your day's itinerary. I want the teachers, the instructors and the coaches back. I want other adults to be responsible for my kids, their activities & their daily needs (well at least from about 8 - 3).

I have run out of ideas for sunny days, I am fresh out of creative thoughts during rainy days and for those days that are in between, I find myself encouraging multiple hours of TV and inappropriate movies (only PG of course) for my children to watch.

Today is a prime example of what I am talking about...it was about 100 degrees out and the kids and I had enough sun from the last few days that we just needed a break. We are 110% Irish and I don't think my son has any room left on his nose for another freckle and my husband keeps telling me that my neck/chest region is starting to look like Magda's (please refer to "Something About Mary" for details....) So......we were trapped inside and I was completely at a loss. I decided that I was going to arrange "playdates" for my older kids and then the rest of the day they would have to be creative on their own....thus, the Ginley Ghetto Games were born......Triple G's for short......

GGG#1:

Give your kids a box of markers (preferably the "washable" kind but we all know that is false advertising...shame on you Crayola...) When you come upstairs after folding 50 lbs. of laundry and you see that your son's body looks like and episode of L.A. Ink, you can thank your daughter. When she then exclaims that she is "not going back to school and is moving to Venice and opening a tattoo parlor" you can only blame yourself.

GGG #2:

Use the rain water that has collected in your $9 plastic pool and tell your kids to take a dip to cool off. Never mind those floating bug bodies or the mosquito larvae, as my dad used to say, "It puts hair on your chest!" Now, if your kids tell you the water is too hot, throw a box of freezer burned Popsicles in the water to cool it down. If they act bored or complain tell them enthusiastically it is time to "bob for Popsicles" or act like the multi-colored water is really fascinating.

GGG #3:

People who have been to my house can attest to the fun of this game as it "kills two birds with one stone"......If you have one of those inflatable water slides blow it up and get the water going. Fill the bottom part (a.k.a. the pool) with shampoo or body wash (tear free is best but if you are out just throw some Salon Selectives in there and tell them to keep their eyes shut tight) - See! Now the kids are having fun and you don't have to worry about bath time tonight.......

I tend to find that doing two things at once is really very economical and a huge time saver (i.e. using the sprinkler to water the lawn and also having the kids run through it to get sand off their bodies, I'm also a huge fan of eating outside and finishing it off with something sticky so then I have an excuse to hose them off and I don't look like the crazy mom my neighbors have made me out to be.......)

So, you see, my kids are better off back in school, where they belong. It is starting to get dangerous around here and it's only a matter of time before someone picks up the phone and calls some government agency on me. Let's get back to the schedules, back to the grind, back to a time where I can nap quietly and no one is prying my eyelids open "claiming" there is some sort of "emergency".......