My kids start school in two days, which means today’s the last Sunday of the summer. In the Baker household, that makes today the 2nd Annual Eat Whatever You Want day.It’s exactly what it sounds like.Last year my wife and I came up with Eat Whatever You Want day as a sort of last hurrah for summer. Every year we try to make summer a big deal around here. Although there are plenty of hours in which the kids sit in front of any one of their assorted screens, our goal is to pack as many fun (meaning non-video-game-related) things into the summer as we can.Eat Whatever You Want day is the culinary, gluttonous, and irresponsible aspect of our summer fun.Here’s how it worked this year: each of the four kids gave us a list of items they wanted to eat today. None of them went too crazy with their requests. Surprisingly, when you tell a kid that he can eat anything he wants, he’ll have a hard time coming up with a decent list.In addition, we also told them that they could choose one restaurant at which they’d eat one meal, and also what they wanted for their other meals.Again, their responses weren’t what you’d think. We had a couple that chose pizza, one who told us she’d get back to us, and one who pretty much ignored our request.At the grocery store this morning I filled the cart with all sorts of things that I never buy. Here’s what it looked like all spread out.
My delay in getting the requested food pushed breakfast (Fudgesicles for two kids, half a pint of Ben & Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for another, and almost an entire package of refrigerated hash browns for the third) back to eleven o’clock.That made it difficult to fit in lunch and dinner, so the afternoon was filled with assorted snacks, and then dinner. No restaurants today. We simply ran out of time.There’s cheesecake on the horizon, before the kids settle in to an almost-normal bedtime. (Another of the Baker summer rules is no bedtime. This led to numerous nights of the clock striking midnight with everyone still up and at ‘em. Weeknight shmeeknight.)I joked with my wife that next weekend should be You Eat What We Want You to Eat day, but no sense in kicking them when they’re down, and I think they’re down about the end of summer.My wife and I are down about it, too.I’ve written before about how I’ve chosen to live vicariously through my children during the summer. I get just as excited as they do about the end of the school year. And when those Back to School ads start appearing after the Fourth of July, I want to go into Target and start knocking over displays of markers, glue and notebooks.Nothing will ruin a summer like dad spending time in the pokey though, so I stay away from Target. Instead I just mutter bad words to myself whenever a commercial comes on TV that shows some well-dressed kid with his chipper smile and enthusiasm about going back to school. I haven’t been in a fistfight since kindergarten, but I swear I always wanted to pack an extra knuckle sandwich in my lunch box for kids like that.For a couple of weeks now my wife and I have been saying things like, “It’ll be good to get back on a schedule,” and “It can’t be vacation all the time.”Those are just things we say to try and fool ourselves that going back to school doesn’t suck.Unfortunately, the only thing that sucks worse than that is being dumb. So while I’d like to extend summer vacation indefinitely, that’s just not realistic. The kids have to learn. There are books to read, and math problems to solve, and historical facts to memorize.They might even learn that ice cream for breakfast is a bad idea.Whatever. I’m not concerned about that. It’s summer. It’s Eat Whatever You Want Day.And that means tonight is Drink Whatever I Want Night.Time to get started.Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.
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