This summer, bedtime involves a 4 year-old and an 8 year-old, and I wish I could tell you that it has magically become easier because a year passed on the calendar. Ha! No. In fact, just the opposite, I am afraid. Who else finds themselves feeling this way each night? Please tell me I am not alone.

Would you rather wrestle an overtired, screaming, hysterical 3 year-old who absolutely cannot possibly fathom the thought of wearing jammies with stars on them, because she knows there must exist, in spite of telling her there is not, a perfectly good pair of clean jammies somewhere with polka dots on them; OR would you rather ask the fully-capable, totally able-bodied 7 year-old for the 44th time in the last 2.5 minutes to please, PLEASE, turn off iCarly. RIGHT. NOW. And just go into her room and put on the pajamas that you have ALREADY laid out on the bed for her?

What’s that you say? Your answer is that you would rather just have two children who did what you said, when you said it, and went to bed like the obedient angels who should be hidden inside them somewhere?

If that’s the case, you should probably think about skipping bedtime at my house during the summer. You see, during the school year, we have a very specific routine that involves bedtime for both children at exactly 7pm. And I like it that way … A LOT.

But summer, with all its “fun” and “no school/no schedule” and daylight until well past 8:30pm, the routine just goes straight to hell in a hand basket. Even on the nights when I manage to get them upstairs by a reasonable time, like 7:30, I am already well past the point of fun and games. Emma put it perfectly the other night when she said to me, “Why are you always so angry at night, but so nice during the day?” Ouch. I resisted coming back with something along the lines of, “Because you and your sister totally make me that way!”

Here is the answer I wish I could give her:

As each minute on the clock ticks by, starting around 6pm (3pm, who am I kidding?), I can feel myself getting closer and closer to the outskirts of straight up Crazy Town, because all I want is silence and calm. I want to get to the blissful, golden, few sweet hours to myself after bedtime where I can eat a meal and watch TV and pour over the latest in the Big Brother happenings online.

At least during the school year, I have gotten the break of school during the day, but with the exception of the brief weeks of summer camp, my children are with me ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. The later it gets, the less time I have to recharge and the shorter my patience fuse gets. In the summer, I find myself needing that time even more, but the later bedtime snatches it away like a total kick in the pants. Thoughts like these, of course, are followed by a round of mother guilt, because I want to be enjoying this time, I should be enjoying this time.

My girlfriends and I talk a lot about the monotony of motherhood and maybe it really shows its true colors in the summer. The endless daily cycle of feeding, clothing, sunscreen application, bathing, washing dishes, laundry, stories, books, games, toys, and bedtime, only to start right back up again the very next day, means that the fun available on the first day of summer decreases exponentially with every subsequent “same” day feeling.

Yet, what I have found to be true this summer, at least for me, is that when I stop all of that – I mean I don’t stop feeding them, of course, although it would be nice to get a real break from that short order cook lifestyle – but when I actually sit with my children and am truly present with them, I always come away from it feeling lighter and happier. They always manage to say something that makes me laugh or is so endearingly sweet that I feel my heart take a picture of the moment.

Oprah would certainly tell me that I should be doing that more and complaining less, but in response I would probably tell her to stop by tomorrow right around 7:30pm and play a little “would you rather” game with me…