It's Short and Sweet, but It's Intense—Operation SuperMom Summer Starts Here!

The genie's been uncorked: It's summer.

Ask any mom who stays home to work and manage the house and family: If you could take all that barely contained energy and bottle it, there'd be no energy crisis, no need for utility rate hikes, and no need to recycle cooking oil and corn for alternative fuel sources.

But riddle me this, Batman—how do we direct all that youthful energy?

Sure, there's the pool and the movies and the library and the skating rink ... all good, calorie-burning, generator-powering activities. (Really—why haven't they figured out yet to power generators and air conditioning via roller-skating rinks yet? I think I'm on to something here...) But what do we do with the little darlings when the wallet's empty or it's just to hot and the pool feels like bathwater?

Launch Operation SuperMom Summer! Five tips to get you started:

1. You did the pool thing all day today. The kids are cranky, tired, and they need a nap. Only YOU are SuperMom. Naps are for toddlers. You and your kids are going to Siesta! Make it rhyme with fiesta, and you've got a daytime slumber party. Tip: lay on the floor, not the bed, so the springs don't give you away when you sneak out once great your Siesta-ing children are down for the count. Everybody's rested and ready to go back to the pool when Daddy gets home, but let him get some quality playtime and you stay home for some time alone. 

2. Your teen sleeps all day, gets up for lunch, lounges around all afternoon, then brings home a hungry horde that cleans out your groceries like locusts on their last meal. Hey, no money, no movie. No money, no Icee. No money, no Redbox-ee. No money, no free-for-all in the kitchen. Get the picture? Fold some laundry, mop the floors, wash the car = jobs = money. And p.s. to all you people who have neighbor kids knocking on your door to mow the lawn—give a teen a break and hire him for the summer! Sure, you may have to spend some time to show him how to mow without rows, but you were once young and broke, remember? Be a good neighbor and give him a pointer on how to trim the hedges or weed the flowerbeds. Always good to stay on a teen's good side come Halloween...

4. The singing ice cream truck isn't going to go away BUT you, aka SuperMom, can save big bucks if you keep some frozen treats in your freezer. Come on... two dollars for a rocket pop? Or better yet, get the kids to do the old fashioned thing: Freeze juice, pudding, fruit puree ... heck, scrape the peas your kid didn't touch at dinner into a cup of OJ and try freezing that. Some kids thrive on the double-dog-dare-ya-to-eat-the-disgusting-frozen-green-thing. It's vegetables and juice; what could it hurt?

5. You know it's going to happen, so arm yourself now. "I'm BORED!" SuperMom knows this is just kidspeak for "I want to think and create something!" Download instructions and coupons online from your favorite crafts site. You can go to the crafts store, or for more interesting materials, go to Goodwill: Cotton t-shirts to tie dye, or flip flops to decorate, or straw purses, blue jeans, even wedding dresses all wait to be cannibalized or re-imagined. Remember when we cut the legs off jeans, sewed the bottom together and added a strap to make a purse? Do some back-to-school shopping while you're there—you never know what you'll find, and you're being green and frugal to boot!

What tips can you offer for frugal summer fun?