Independent Study Finds Mommas Depressed in June

I conducted a recent study and found that the majority of Stay At Home Mothers Of Pre-schoolers are depressed the first few weeks of summer. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the study included myself, and 5 of my girlfriends.)

(One Third of My Study Participants)

You would think that it would be liberating, not having a schedule. All spring you imagine a summer of floating on inner tubes with fruit infused water in the ever-so-cleverly-placed cup holder. You dream of spending the day in either your pajamas or your swimsuits. Why is it then, three days into summer we find ourselves curled up in our closets eating the secret stash of chocolates (read: semi-sweet baking squares you forgot about from Christmas) wearing foam tiaras over unkempt hair.

Is it the realization that we must plan thirteen activities a day to keep the shin-kickers from wrecking our homes (read: dryers full of this week's recycling)?  Is it that our babies are too young to do the really cool camps? Doing the math in our heads that it will still be TWO MORE YEARS before we can drop them off for 3 hours of arts and crafts? Or is it that there really is no difference between summer and the rest of the year?  Even if there are days spent in our swimsuits, there will be no lazy, partial nap, floating around with fruity drinks. There will be the breaking up of fights and sweating and packing half the house for a two hour outing. There will be whining and crying and unhappy campers. 

However; a silver lining was discovered in this study. Once those mommas remembered that there is strength in numbers, they set up play dates. They started sharing ideas for activities. ( "Hey meet us at the library to see Ronald McDonald." )  The weight of the job seemed to lessen. It lessened so much that they found themselves with anxiety over sending their children off to kindergarten in just five short weeks. (And by "anxiety" I mean "joyful anticipation") Will there be time to get the inflatable water slide back out? What about the group trip to the beach? When are we going to fit in the mermaid show?  Summer started slipping away so fast the study participants forgot they were in a funk at all.

So summer may not look like this:

But hey -

We're still...