summer scheduling [oxymoron]

pssst! don't forget to enter the Simply Boco blanket giveaway! 
Winner will be drawn on Friday AM!

Does anyone else feel like summer is a time when so much of what you work SO hard to achieve with your kids during the year just flies out the window? Or just me? It's been so unpredictable and chaotic around here compared to our norm. I'm so thankful that my kids are still taking their 10am nap at the same time - but now instead of 2 hours, it lasts for 1.5-3 hours (see, unpredictable). BUT AT LEAST THERE'S A 10AM NAP, amen? Because everything else is basically gone.

I don't know what it is. The heat? The extended hours of daylight? The fun activities around ever corner which I wish would exhaust them but seems to only fuel their fire? Whatever it is, my kids have started going to bed WAY later, eating FAR less, and generally disobeying a LOT more... But the weather sure is nice.

Our new normal seems to be medium/average sized breakfast, the tiniest lunch you can imagine (a banana? maybe some cheese? that's it.), and then an OK dinner. That's after weeks of fighting it, and wondering why my kids ate NOTHING for dinner after their normal sized lunch (which I had to force feed them). I'm OK with the later betimes, because I still put them down at 7pm. I just expect that it will take them anywhere from 30min-2 hrs to actually go to bed. But the downside is they're actually tired at the end of this. Throughout the morning they're longing for their nap. Because let's be honest about the cruelties of toddler sleep habits - no matter how late they stay up it seems like they still remember their normal wake time!

We've definitely been having a fun and active summer which I thought would increase their appetites and need for sleep, but not so much. Sure they zonk out on the drive home from Papa's pool but that's like toddler sleeping heaven - warm and dry after a fun, wet, energetic swim, motion lulling them to sleep, perfect temperature thanks to the car's AC... you get it. Surprisingly, given my 3rd trimester state, we've made it our almost every single day to the park + splash pad so they're getting tons of water and fun and when we don't, we still spend hours on our back terrace playing with the toys back there. But it's not really making a difference.

My resolve is to just embrace this since it is summer after all. And because I'm such a planner, if I have it in my mind that the new normal/goal is for them to basically have 1 snack for lunch (and no snacks throughout the day), and stay up well past 8 o'clock, then it seems fine. I'm sure (fingers crossed!) that once Fall rolls around, they'll be back to sleeping longer + earlier and eating more.

Has anyone else noticed a similar trend with their kids?

Please share!