Family Forum: Gap Weeks-Induced Panic Attacks

Each year, around April, moms all over Long Island start to feel a strange uneasiness that seems incongruent with the brightening weather. We come to expect it as one might expect an unwelcome visit from a not-so-well-liked relative.

What is this stress that invades our psyche when we should be thinking of May flowers, the opening of our pools and our long-awaited summer vacation?
 
It's the dreaded question of what to do with the kids when school lets out in early June (way too early for our liking) and before camp starts in late June (way too late for anyone's liking) and then as if that's not enough...we're tortured by this dilemma again in August!
 
So fellow moms, how do you handle the "Gap Weeks-Induced Panic Attacks?" You can't very well put a five year old in summer school and for us working moms, having a rambunctious any-aged child hanging around the house all day for three, sometimes four weeks simply isn't even thinkable!
 
This year, in an attempt to cut those panic attacks off at the pass and perhaps avoid another embarrassing visit to the family practitioner who probably just looks at you, rolling his eyes whenever you try to describe the "visitor" who comes in April, we will try to solve this crisis...on behalf of all suburban moms of the world!

With all the creative juice one mom can muster, drum roll please...let's hear it for The Working Mom's Summer Survival Strategy:

1. Call an emergency meeting with your mommy friends and arrange a babysitter barter.
2.  Call another emergency meeting with your mommy friends and pledge to do anything they want in return for taking your kids for all day play dates.
3. Call all your neighbors to see if their college-aged daughters would like to volunteer to be your Mother's Helper (hey, they can put this "internship" on their resume, can't they?)
4. Find a camp started by a working mom that operates like a health club...opens at 5 a.m. and closes whenever the last kid leaves! 

And now it's your turn...how do you handle the gap weeks? Have you found any creative service providers out there who see this as a potential money-making venture? Who smells business opportunity here?

Thalia Stamatelos is the Owner & Founder of NY Mom's World (www.nymomsworld.com) and local Syosset mommy blogger. Her website features searchable resources for Moms & MomPreneurs. She also hosts various events so be sure to check out her Events & Workshops page at www.nymomsworld.com/events-and-workshops.html.