School’s out for summer, well almost!

How I am planning to navigate working and parenting over the long summer break

Hello, and welcome to the home of The Tiny Department Store. Here you will find my weekly newsletter where I share the behind the scenes of setting up a small business and working towards making my dream of opening a concept store a reality. Without premises or a large budget I plan to create the world’s tiniest department store, measuring just the dimensions of the wooden box on the front of my shiny blue bicycle. The Tiny Department Store will pop up once a month with a new theme and a limited edition range of products that constantly evolve. I will also give you a peek inside my world, sharing snippets of my daily life, travels and inspirations. I would love you to join me on this journey x

As you know this is not a parenting substack, however once the school holidays begin, parenting and working become impossibly intertwined. Here in California most schools have already broken up for the long summer break. Our school is thankfully still in session, but only just! The end of term bell will be chiming at 10am on Friday morning and I am trying my best to feel the same sense of excitement that my children are. I am certainly no stranger to the giddy anticipation that the end of term brings, working as an Art teacher for most of my career, but since starting my own business, I can’t deny feeling a little apprehensive about the thought of a nine week summer break.

I usually book the children onto a couple of camps, this is something that the US do incredibly well. There is a vast and varied selection, although I have learnt the hard way that you really need to start booking these camps as early as February if you want to secure the hottest tickets. This year however, both my kiddos insisted that they didn’t want to attend any camps and despite me offering up all manor of suggestions they were steadfast and to be honest they are so expensive that I have agreed to a ‘camp free’ summer.

Summer days can be long so I know that I need to bring some kind of focus to stop the days merging into one another and to keep some semblance of control on the dreaded screen time. As I sat down with a large blank sheet of paper and a pen, it occurred to me that I might have more success if I enlisted the kids help in planning out the summer.

I had a couple of non-negotiables, getting out of PJ’s and into clothes by 10am and leaving the house each day to get fresh air and exercise in some capacity. We have also joined a community pool for the summer so I would like the kids to get in plenty of swimming. Apart from this I was keen to see what they would like to do and was open to all suggestions. We first made a list of places that we would like to visit. The movies was a popular choice, both kids want to see Elemental, the new Pixar movie. They also wanted to get the ferry into the city to re-visit the urban park in the sky. Everyone was also keen to drive out to one of the many farm stands that we are so lucky to have to buy some fresh ingredients for dinner, one evening. We will definitely head to the beach one day, and settled on Kehoe beach as we have yet to visit. Limantour beach was also added to the list as a family favourite.

A photo from our last trip to the rooftop park at the Salesforce Tower

I want to take the kids to see the public art in Tiburon, Collaborative Nature by artist Thomas Jackson. We can hopefully combine this with a walk and an ice cream. There are a couple of local hikes that we will do on quieter days and if we can squeeze in another day in San Francisco, I would love to take the kids to see the beautiful tiled steps at Lincoln Park and will take sketchbooks, hoping that they might be in the mood to draw. We haven’t made a fixed plan of what to do each day to allow flexibility on how everybody is feeling and the weather of course, but I do think having some ideas that we have already agreed on will help with the flow of the summer.

Collaborative Nature - Thomas Jackson

I also introduced the concept of Life Bingo. I made both children a grid with 16 boxes and sat down with them each individually to think of ideas for small challenges that they could complete over the holidays. The aim was that the challenges would help them in their lives now and in the future.

Our first attempt at ‘Life Bingo’ - wish me luck!

Posy’s challenges include making a simple pasta dish, putting on a load of laundry, cutting her own finger nails, organising and taking out the recycling and cycling to the library to borrow a book. Jake’s include writing a thank you note (addressing the envelope, buying a stamp and posting), going to the store to buy a small list of groceries, learning to floss his teeth properly and following a recipe to make a simple family meal. Some of their challenges are the same and they can do together and some are independent.

For each challenge they complete they will earn a few pounds for their trip to the UK later in the summer and if they complete the whole bingo card there will be an extra treat. It was actually a really interesting experience seeing what they chose for their challenges as we were in agreement for most. I will keep you posted on our progress!

In terms of structuring the days, I am planning to get up earlier than usual to ensure I have at least an hour of quiet time to work before the day begins. I am also going to be pretty relaxed about the first few hours of each day so I can aim to work up until 9.30am without too many disruptions. The kids will be happy with a slower start and some screen time and hopefully this will eliminate some nagging on my part. The kids also have holiday homework and reading from school, which I will try and get them to do a little each day. This should give me another small window of time to get some of my own work done.

Apologies if you don’t have school age children (or indeed children at all) and today’s post isn’t of interest. When I set up my substack, I really wanted it to be an honest reflection of my journey to setting up a small creative business from scratch and this is part of my story. The next few months are going to be a real juggle as I don’t have childcare and I really want the kids to have a fun and enriching summer whilst somehow continuing to make progress on my own creative goals.

Next week I will share exactly where I am up to with The Tiny Department Store. I have now completed three out of the four products for the launch and am about to start work on the final department. I am also working on packaging and promotional materials and in the process of planning a photo shoot for September.

I would love to know any tips or tricks that you may have for keeping the balls in the air during the summer break, or perhaps the key is to have very modest expectations!

Until next week x