“Our memories of the ocean will linger on, long after our footprints in the sand are gone.”
--Anonymous
As we approach midsummer, and it is officially HOT outside, it reminds me of all the seemingly long summer days I spent with my girls at Cape Cod. We were fortunate enough to have the privilege of using a family summer home during the entire month of July. I know it sounds wonderful, and it was. I also know that it seems like there would have been millions of things to do, and there were, however many of the "exciting" things to do were very expensive. Since we were usually vacationing on a very tight budget, it became necessary for me to seek out interesting and inexpensive (and in this case I mean free) things to do with my girls each day.
If you are a parent facing the "Mom! I'm bored!" complaints from your children, then perhaps I may help you to discover new, interesting, and low cost ways to enjoy the summer months with your child. The first thing I took advantage of was using the local, free access beach that was located at the end of our road. My girls had countless hours of fun looking for hermit crabs, fish, shells, and even rocks of various colors. We built sand castles, (lost car keys in sand castles, but that is another story for another time), we talked about the current, and how to swim differently in a river or ocean than one would in a pool or a pond.. Walking along the shoreline led to many discussions about the variety of wildlife, and why different creatures lived in different environments. I bought books for the girls that helped them to identify the tiny animals, shells, and plants that we found living at the shore. This made the experience more interesting, and they were learning many new things at the same time.
Natural History museums are also a very inexpensive way to entertain young children on summer days. I will never, nor will my girls, forget the day that I took them to the Brewster Natural History Museum on Rt. 6 A, one scorching HOT summer day. When we arrived I noticed that there was a guided tour of the cranberry bogs at 10:00 a. m. I thought that this would be an interesting and fun thing to do, and it might have been had it not been sooooo brutally hot that day. After the very enthusiastic guide had us follow him all over the edge of the bogs, he suggested we walk out along a ridge across the bogs. My girls had already been whispering complaints to me about how hot and tired they were, but I was determined to press on. Being the good sports that my girls have learned to be, probably because I usually leave them no other choice, they pressed on. After about another 10 minutes of wandering around the bogs and listening to what had to be very boring for two small girls, the guide suggested that we turn around. I could hear them both whispering,"Thank God", to one another. We browsed around the gift shop for a bit before departing, and I thought that the day had been a great one. It wasn't until this past year, when my two daughters and I returned to the Cape (this time in winter) to finalize my oldest daughters wedding plans, and we were reminiscing about the days that we had spent on Cape Cod, when one of them brought up the cranberry bog incident. The both let me know that they thought I had lost my mind that day, but didn't want to ruin the fun so they went along with the idea. I have learned two things from this incident, first of all most children have fun at most things if they aren't having to endure some unpleasant condition; in this case extreme heat, and secondly I discovered how both of my girls had developed tolerance at such a young age.
Not every outing has to be at a beach, or museum. We spent many hours biking, hiking, going to the library to choose our favorite books, getting ice cream at the dairy farm, swimming, and doing fun things together that not only filled our day with pleasurable activities, but built memories to last a life time!
Start planing your next summer outing with your children today, and you will have many good times as a family.
