All Play and No Work

Have you noticed that when your children play with friends a lot it kind of changes their behavior.  They start to behave like they are entitled to play with friends whenever they want.  School work, chores, and general courteous behavior becomes beneath them.  In short, they become little monsters.  My solution to this problem is to call for a "No Friends Day" or if it's really bad, a "No Friends Week".

But guess what?  This phenomenon is not limited to children.  I am here to confess that I have been guilty of too much friend time lately and consequently, I don't want to do my household work, my children are a bother to me, and I am being a beast to the people I love most.
Truth be told, the kids have been playing a ton with friends, but they are handling so much play time much more graciously than I am.  Shame on me.  

With my dear friend, Rebecca when we went to their home for dinner last Sunday.  Cannon called me "Super Hero Mommy!" 

Can you even fathom how beautiful their children would be?  Their hair alone!!!!  Am I the only one who actively thinks about future matches for my children?  I won't force anything, but you better believe I will try to influence!

Wonderful Christine came for a visit from San Diego and there was lots of playing-- including space camp.

No wonder school was such a drag this past week.  Who would want to spend time memorizing states and capitals when there is such socializing to be done.

The ward camp-out was Friday night at Granite Flats.  We went for the evening dinner, but opted not to stay overnight.  If you saw my laundry pile you would agree that I should not add on a camp-out's worth of dirty clothes to the already mountainous pile.

The rivers are running high and fast.  We live in bear country.
Those are reasons enough for me to hold on as tight as I can to my little people.  I don't mean to be such a worrier.  I don't enjoy the anxiety, but it seems to be getting worse.

I did chill out a little as the evening wore on and I could let the ladies explore a little more.

Here are the Cheetos monsters.  They were cracking each other up, not to mention the three surrounding picnic tables.

 

Georgie liked the camp-out until it got a little too late and a lot too cold.

At family book club tonight we discussed Shakespeare's Richard III.  

I should say that we discussed the half that we read.  None of us got much further.  I'm telling you-- too much playing-- not enough time for reading.  

This picture is blurry, but Clark and Anders had a great game going of running as fast as they could toward each other and colliding.  You can see why this would be so fun for little boys-- there is such danger and possibility for injury!

They both remained unscathed.  Whew!

We went to the big city park on Friday afternoon with friends before the campout.  

Clark had a bunch of friends over this afternoon for a rehearsal for the movie he is making.

Faith has had friends over and has gone to friends' houses this week. 

Bethany has had girlfriends over to play.

Elinor has had four boys at a time over to play.  What can I say, they think she is awesome to play with?  They are right!

Friends, friends, friends and more friends!!!!!

ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!!!  I think we have thoroughly proved the point that home-schoolers are still getting "socialized!"

But all this socializing is wearing us out!

And this is how we are feeling.  We need a break.  We need some calm family time this week.  We need to do our chores and get our home in order.  It's been fun, but we're out of balance.  

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy."