Maria Heck column

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Maria’s Summer Survival Guide

Sunday July 12, 2009 | 01:00 AM

Maria Heck

Oh my God in heaven, it’s here already!

I know! Why does the end of school just keep popping up like this every single year? And without a good overnight camp to be had in all of the Northeast!

Well, I’ve put together a helpful guide to lead you along the path to a worry-free and a non-frown-line-producing summer. Your children will become productive little beacons of the community and you can take a nap.

Turn off all air conditioners so children decide its cooler to just go outside. Let them play outdoors until the swarms of bats and mosquitoes flying overhead signal its time for bed… or blood-letting.

Even then, give them a few more minutes.

Maybe hours.

Set-up the trusty lemonade stand as often as possible. I don’t care if they’re harassing the same passers-by as they did the day before. That’s not my problem. This solves two issues: a. keeps them out of your bleached blonde hair for hours at a time and b. provides funding for a summer-full of Pixie Stix and Orange Crush.

Get them a library card! Yes! Promote reading and sharpen those vocabulary skills. Plus, they’ll soon figure out the library is air conditioned and the librarian doesn’t yell at them nearly as much as you do…unless they yank the coupons out of Good Housekeeping Magazines. And I know this from my own my personal experience.

Send children on many useless errands several times a day. For instance, a few bucks and a list of impossible-to-find items make a trip to Evans Hardware an exciting adventure! Some ideas for this list: a box of 9” nails, a sign that says “I Won’t Pee in Your Pool if You Don’t Swim in My Toilet”, a pink hammer, an Erector Set, a Slinky, Christmas tree lights, a rubber band ball and a London broil.

Treasure hunts provide scads of summertime fun! Hide a few items in your yard and give the little darlings a list with really obscure hints. An example: “Go outside and walk fourteen paces to your left. Then six paces to the right. Then walk backwards around the block. Spin around 120 times until you feel light headed and nauseous. Look down. There! You’ve found it! Your shoelace! Well done!”

Try to provide a list of at least 12 items which the little pirates can attempt to seek out. This will take several hours to complete. Longer if you include the neighbor’s yard.

If your children are 13 years of age or older, you need to immediately enroll them in a volunteer service at the local hospital. Candy Stripers are hip! They’ll then become the problem of General Hospital and not you. Emptying out bedpans and slop buckets teaches your children compassion for others and gratefulness for the ease of life at home.

Oh, and they’ll also figure out what the term “bear down” means.

Have your child wash your car for a dollar. Then, when they’re finished, drive it down Swetland Lane several dozen times, thereby ensuring it’ll need a good washing the next day.

And the next. And the next. Rinse and repeat.

Send them to Grandma’s house to sort buttons. My mother made me do this and I somehow got wrangled into also picking coal and weeding Gramma’s ubiquitous garden. To this day, rhubarb makes me wretch.

Oh, and I had to crotchet and make pierogies.

And freshen-up her highball during high stakes games of Gin Rummy. She used to beat the pants off me. Grandma was slick.

Sorting buttons will have to do for now, unless of course there’s a fresh coal mine nearby. And there might be. Add this to the above mentioned Treasure Hunt list and see what we can discover.

Teach children the game of Pick-Up Sticks. Seriously. Just pick up the sticks. And when they’re done with your yard, send them over to mine.

Assign children the task of establishing thread counts of sheets. All they need to do is count the actual threads in a one inch square of sheet! Easy!

And I know this can be done because my twin, Martha Stewart, says so. Don’t mess with the Martha Methodology.

It is imperative that children have fun during the summer, but never at the expense of your sanity.

This is why I think the public pool needs to invest in a karaoke machine and Tiki Bar. Everybody’s happy.