Yesterday was the last day of the school year for my stepson, Jared. For him this means sleeping in, video games, and general all-around freedom. For me, the stay at home step parent, this means something else entirely.

1. Hiding all the fun things I do while he’s at school. This means no more ice cream sundae breakfasts, neighborhood-wide nerf gun fights, helicopter rides and trips to the zoo (when there are no kids at the zoo they let you feed, pet and ride all of the animals. Super fun.).

2. Make him work in the mines! It’s really just a hole I dug in the back yard but I bet if he keeps going he’ll find buried pirate gold or something. Also, it’s not technically child labor if I don’t pay him anything.

3. Pretending learning is fun. Seeing that we’re on a budget, a lot of the places we go are going to be free. Free usually means educational. Libraries, museums and Como Zoo (they don’t let you do the aforementioned cool stuff when kids are around). Everybody knows there is nothing fun about learning but I’ll just have to suck it up and pretend it’s a blast. If he doesn’t like it, back to the mines with him.

Parenting is tough.