Dear Summer,

Welcome back, my old friend. We’ve missed you.

As always, you showed up right on time, with the shrill dinging of the last school bell one afternoon last week. You rode on the shoulders of my delirious sons, as they bounded out to the car. Their faces were flushed with the awareness that you’ll be their companion for the next three glorious months.

Those three months seem short to me, but I have visited with you 37 times. To my children, who have known you for only a handful of visits, your three-month stay seems like an eternity. I don’t really understand how that works, but I know that I like the look in their eyes.

In theory, I think parents should be careful about over-scheduling their children, especially in the summer. In theory, I think it’s wise to give kids plenty of free time to play, learn and explore during the lazy days of summer.

In theory.

In practice, there are four children in my house, and while unstructured summer days may lead to great personal discoveries for the children, they can also lead to a few pounding headaches for the mom. I (and the kids, for that matter) can only handle so much non-structure before we start grouching at each other and climbing the walls.

I don’t know why the United Nations gets itself all up in a twist; I have found the simple and certain key to world peace. Are you ready for it?

It’s a room full of four year olds singing Skidamarink-a-Dinky-Dink.

It’s true. It’s biologically, chemically impossible to witness this type of thing and retain a single negative emotion in your head. I know this, because I stopped by my daughter’s preschool class on Thursday for their annual Mother’s Day breakfast. The four-year-olds had been hard at work for weeks, learning songs and making crafts to share with their moms.

It’s the week before Mother’s Day, which means the marketing machines are grinding away at full speed. Every single shopping-related website I’ve visited lately has jumped on the Mother’s Day bandwagon, offering suggestions for how people should use their products to express their love to Mom.

Some of the ideas are good ones, of course. Comfy pajamas, gift cards to the bookstore or for take-out, personalized jewelry -- moms love this stuff.

But some of the ideas I’ve seen offered up?

BAD.

Ah, Spring. The little robins settle in a nest outside my window. The azaleas explode into bloom. And my calendar nearly implodes under the weight of itself.

It catches me off-guard, every year around this time, how busy things can get as school starts to wind to a close. Every club, every team, every class -- they all prepare for their big end-of-year presentations/banquets/parties. End-of-year school projects come due and big spring dance recitals loom on the near horizon. Deadlines emerge for summer activity sign-ups. In this family, two birthdays pop up, ready to be celebrated and planned for. My scraggly flower beds beg for attention.

It’s all fun, of course -- great fun, actually, since much of it takes place outside in the beautiful weather. But that doesn’t change the nearly manic level of busy-ness I find myself facing, especially since our kid activities are multiplied by four. As I flipped through my calendar last night, a little overwhelmed at the weeks ahead, it occurred to me that the month of May might actually surpass December for schedule craziness, at least in this family. Except without the benefit of all the delicious holiday food, which is probably a good thing, since swimsuit season beckons.

(Oh, rats. Add that one to the list: find a swimsuit.)