Life has been giving us ups and downs and I suppose that's just life. Stephen has been having less of those crazy fits and I am not sure if it's because I have tried to spend more time with him, or that school is out or that he has been having a blast at the neighborhood camp.

I have a pretty hectic work at week next week so I took this Saturday off in advance to enjoy some family time. We qualify to get a discounted packet of summer time fun for my kids. It helped us last year have tons of fun. The coupons which we paid for pay for the children and we pay for ourselves and it was encouragement to use them up so we did quite a bit with a limited amount of money. At the time, I was working less so hoping we can still squeeze in the fun times.

Alex still is working and doesn't have much going for him and since my husband isn't working (besides being home for my two sons and babysitting our grand daughter) he is driving him crazy. My husband wakes up at 6 am and when the baby sleeps he likes to try to nap but this is the time that Alex is up and moving around and no amount of talking to him as worked so far for him to be quiet during this time.

Honestly, I am tired of the bitching. I hear how he doesn't want the kids hanging out with him too much. That he isn't their friend and the only person he really wants to hang out with is me. I would like to talk to my son about all these issues but how in the hell do you tell the kid to stay away from the adult.

I been wondering how to do our summer fun. I don't know if I should include Alex in our summer plans. Summer time for me is celebration and relaxation from the hard school year. He has been done with school since March and now wondering how do I handle my days where I was used to having just Stephen. It's not that I don't want to hang with Alex I just also wonder how much is Alex going to want to hang with us and on my time. My idea of the pool is being there for the full hours that they are open. Basically, get the most bang for my buck. I wouldn't want to feel like Alex is hanging with us just because we are going out for "fun" stuff but when we ask him to come to a park with us he threw a fit. A family isn't always going to do what everyone see's as fun times but that doesn't mean fun time can't happen if he would just give it half the chance.

I am very frustated that Alex doesn't have a job yet. I would settle for a two day a week job. I might even settle for a volunteer job. He just needs to do something to keep himself busy. I think half of him driving my husband nuts is that he walks around here holding his kindle like he lost his puppy? Joking but walking around and with nothing to do.

I have thought about "employing" him to take Stephen to the Y once a week but honestly Stephen would rather be at the camp and this is his last year being able to go to the neighborhood camp which is low cost or free. The field trips cost and the cookout costs so that's why I say low cost but you don't have to send your kids on those days if you don't want to pay. My husband just informed me that he learned how to skate on the field trip!!! I haven't talk to my son this morning cause it was my long day. My boy has been exposed to skating quite a few times each year but never would skate off the carpet and mostly played the games.

I think the hard part of making everything work for my family is that my sons' have had very different upbringings. Alex was incluenced more by my ex while we were married and while he lived with him for the three years. Stephen probably doesn't have memories of living with Dad and has grown up with my husband and myself. Stephen has been more involved in the park district programs than Alex did because we found out about the camps at the age where Alex was soon to be too old.

One thing that I never knew about was getting discounts through the Park district and Stephen was able to go to an overnight camp for 5 days last year and this year I splurged for two weeks (not together)