Planning Ahead

Two and a half weeks until school is out for the summer, and then Penny will start daycare summer camp. She's already looking forward to it -- she loves field trips, and they've got at least two field trips planned every week. Most weeks have three or even four.

I'm looking forward to it, too -- having both kids at daycare means that we can leave the house a bit earlier and I can get to work before 8 instead of at 8:30. Having an extra half-hour or so to play with in my schedule really makes a difference.

Of course, it adds some extra difficulty, too -- we've got to pack breakfast, lunch, and snack for Penny (instead of just lunch) and her favorite lunch (peanut butter and jelly sandwich) has to drop off the menu, because the daycare isn't equipped to isolate kids with peanut allergies the way the school is. And I have to provide carb counts and worksheets, etc. And keep track of which days are field trip days, because those meals have to be able to be eaten cold.

A new wrinkle this year, and we'll see how it goes: the packed lunches the daycare is providing for field trip days is ordered and prepackaged, rather than prepared by the daycare. So they should come pre-portioned and have nutrition information. Which means that we might be able to let Penny eat those, if she wants, and if they aren't too insanely high in carbs.

All this is a good thing, of course -- we love it when she's able to match the other kids' activities as closely as possible -- but it's some extra juggling for me as I make up the schedules. My task for this week is to go ahead and draw up the template for the daily menu slips to include in her lunchbox, and to sketch in notes about which days are going to require a "field trip" lunch and/or snack, and which days are movie days (if it goes like last year, we're sending a diet soda in with her, because the theater provides full-sugar Sprite), and which days are swim days (not really diabetes/food-related, but it's a convenient place for me to make the note so we remember to send in her swimsuit/towel/sandals).

I'm also thinking about pre-planning some family "field trips" for this summer. I spent all last summer promising Penny I'd take her to the beach, and I didn't get my act together on it until the day before school started -- and it was already too cool to actually swim. So I'd like to plan a beach day or two for this summer (possibly in conjunction with Ray and his folks, or Braz and Adin and their assortment of kids). And I'd like to plan a day or two for Busch Gardens, though whether that's a whole-family deal or a Penny-and-Daddy thing, I'm not sure yet (because if I'm going to be looking after Alex while Matt and Penny ride roller coasters together, it would be more comfortable to do that at home). And of course there's the Fourth of July and the Summer Bash and our trip to Chicago in July, and August will have Penny's birthday and a trip to Atlanta for my cousin's wedding...

Somehow, the summer is already full.