Making Summer Memories

It seemed like a odd solution but it was worth a shot. My daughter and I wanted to watch a streamed movie over 4th of July weekend, but the borrowed iPad wasn’t cooperating and we didn’t have split earbuds.
 
"Well," I offered. "I could watch it on my phone = since I was still streaming my free month of Netflex= and you could watch it on the iPad. And so, in the midst of the somber plot of ‘The Hunt for Red October’, the only patriotic film besides ‘The Patriot’ we could find streamed, we went through hysterical gyrations of one or the other of us getting bumped off WiFi and hitting ‘pause’ and then coordinating with a "3-2-1 ‘PLAY"! so we were both watching and hearing the same thing at the same time.
 
It will be one of our best, silliest memories.
 
Of all the jobs of motherhood, without a doubt the one I have loved the best is intentional memory making. It occurred to me that though I spend the bulk of time teaching parents, I have never included any parent education component in this column. And so, I offer these time tested tips for making the most of what’s left of the summer. August, with no official holidays, is the perfect time to create some fun.
 
First of all, we are talking primarily about recreation and tradition and legend. Those are your three goals. You are building your family’s story. Secondly, let enrichment and education be the side dish. What you are doing is family fun.
 
It may include substance, a museum or event, or it may, as it does for my children now all grown and some passing it along to their children, include special items.
 
Our one day escapes to Vancouver BC where we left in the morning, actually used see-saws = that have since been deemed unsafe and removed= in Stanley Park, dinner at the Spaghetti Factory, a quick side stop at the fire engine shaped climber near Jericho Beach as we took Marine Drive out of town, and an accidental date night as the kids slept in the car on the way home and we had a few hours to ourselves were a tradition that carved time out for all kinds of serendipitous moments we experienced together.
 
Other items that will structure the nature of family time are:
Have-To’s—keep a carefree feel to the the summer by de-escalating and minimizing the emphasis on chores. Half an hour a day with everyone pitching in keeps the house at , what I call , low tide. Clean the house together at the same time so everyone is done quickly.
 
Tradition—these are what your kids will pass on to their kids. Our tradition was short tourist road trips. The trip to Victoria where we serendipitously ran into the neighbors who lived across the street from me when I was growing up was something we could never have engineered. Short day trips always provide wonderful moments of ‘ohmygoodness I can’t believe that just happened’.
 
Individual desires—Let everyone pick one event or experience they want for the summer. Learn to enjoy each other’s ideas. You will end up going bowling, fishing, acting like tourists or seeing outdoor movies on the lawn. Or someone may want to go to the Farmer’s Market and pick out what’s for dinner.
 
Create Artifacts and Rituals—though for a different season, our family has a set of pedestal cut glass squat goblets that are only used for orange jello with mandarin orange slices at special meals. Make a ‘no screen week’ and bring out the board games or dance in the living room to random music choices.
 
Record the memories – cameras, pamplets, postcards and retelling the story are all vital parts of creating legends. Celebrate yourselves as a family with your own narrative.
 
When things go wrong the positive surfaces. That makes legend creation fun. Caity and I took the train trip from hell down the California Coast and back for a Spring wedding. Not one part of the trip went right except putting our luggage behind the sanctuary doors of the church right as the bride reached the bottom of the aisle.
 
The retelling of it always results in hilarious recounting such as, "Then we woke up in the morning after the twelve hour delay and we were moving BACKWARDS! And a new crew was standing out in this field". Such a bad trip that we got free food vouchers and a refunded trip is now one of our ‘favorite’ memories. When things are going wrong, remember it’s going to make a great story.
 
Isaac and Chris were the only children when we took our first family trip together to Victoria and discovered there was no film in the camera on the way home. The only way we could hold the memory of the fish tank at the Chinese restaurant or the hotel or the miniature village was to tell the story.
 
And of course the final trip with Grandpa George to Expo ’86 and over to Butchart Gardens the summer before he died was nothing short of precious. Grandpa was eighty that year and so was Butchert Gardens and because of that we got free admission and high tea! Teach your children how to remember the good times.
 
Right before Isaac got married we took one last ‘Three Bears’ trip to Portland before we added a new family member. The story of getting bumped into a room, a hotel upgrade, which landed us a room right above the Rose Parade, going to Powell’s ,stumbling on delicious Dim Sum after visiting the Chinese Garden, and eating at the the Bosnian restaurant in southwestern Washington on the way home helped us end an era and prepare for a new one.
 
Put the focus on your family as a unit. Do as much together as you can. Classes for kids and special suppers for parents are fine for summer fun. But when you are together sharing the adventure , the laughter, and the stress, you are bonded in new and different ways. Make being together important.
 
There is still time to go to a drive-in theatre or a lawn showing. Grab the idea of eating dinner every week at a different picnic table in a different park. Do something together that nobody thinks they will like and everyone is apprehensive about.
 
There is no better time to create family through fun and recreation than summer. Whether it’s deciding to switch up chores and hang the laundry outside all summer, or catch every country fair =one of our family’s favorite traditions= Seize the Summer"
 
How powerful is intentional memory making? When my youngest son, who was adopted by us at age five, had a conversation last year with me as an adult he said, ‘I had this really horrible childhood and all these really good memories. !" Needless to say, the good memories were at our house and I told him I worked very hard to create them intentionally.
 
Come winter when you are buried in responsibilities, you may find yourselves still bonding over leaving the picnic basket on the side of the road or watching thunder and lightening together from your living window as a family. When the kids are grown, you will have the joy of watching them create their own families because you taught them how.
 
Love, Deborah