Ah, the sweet sounds of summer – the sprinkler chugging around and around the lawn, the sounds of happy children at play, the vocal-cord-shredding screams of my 6-year-old getting whacked with a light saber by my 11-year-old …

Did anyone else notice that summer (defined of course as the end of school) is only about three weeks away?

One advantage of having kids who are about to leave early childhood, as mine are, is this convenient little arrangement called school. My five children are kept busy with productive activities all day long, and, perhaps even more importantly, in entirely separate buildings (an argument for the K-4 vs. the K-6 school arrangement right there!). When summer comes along, it can feel a little like some cruel joke. Here are a few summer survival tips.

Maintain sibling separation. Be sure to get your kids invited to other people’s houses on a very regular basis. If they aren’t on the same property, they can’t kill each other.

Immerse in water. We like to go to the beach around 4 p.m. (when the wheels really start to come off). A bit of soaking seems to calm everyone down (including me). Keep a “jump bag” with all the swimsuits, towels and water toys ready to go for a quick exit.

Sign up for Parks and Rec. If you haven’t checked out the Eden Prairie Parks and Recreation summer brochure, you really should. The “playground camps” in particular are a great value – for about $25 a week, you can get your kid out of the house all morning.

Limit TV. This is not due to any concern for the children’s development, but solely to preserve its hypnotic, jaw-slackening power for when things really start to go south.

Eat every meal – breakfast, lunch and dinner – outside. We first did this one spring when we were trying to sell our house and didn’t want crumbs (the kids complained it was 45 degrees ... wussies). Now it’s a summer tradition. Less cleanup, more fun.

Simplify meals so they don’t take up your whole day. Get easy breakfasts (cereal, yogurt). For the kids’ lunch, keep the May school lunch menu (or print it off the school Web site at www.edenpr.org) and cycle through their same meals all summer long so you don’t have to think about what to cook. There is a decent chance that most kids will eat those foods.

Don’t overbook. You don’t want to be driving around so much it doesn’t feel like a vacation. One week on, one week off seems to work well for scheduling formal activities.

Summer is also a time to think a little harder about safety. I’m pretty sure I remember my own mother saying she didn’t worry about her kids’ safety because she had “spares.” My own philosophy is one of triage – take care of the most life threatening issues first and don’t worry too much about the rest. Drowning and motor vehicle accidents top the list – we don’t mess around with either of those. The back yard is fenced and locked, and if we ride bikes on the driveway, I run an outdoor extension cord or garden hose across it about 20 feet from the street as a visual reminder of where to stop and turn around. Crossing the barrier means immediate banishment to the inside. If there’s less risk of instant death or grievous bodily harm – well, I must admit we’re tree climbing, light-saber-dueling, sunscreen-negligent, snake-catching, mosquito-bitten people. Probably we’ll end up with West Nile , skin cancer and broken arms, but at least we will have had fun.

Kids, have fun this summer! I wish you lots of play dates, plenty of running through the sprinkler, and a campfire or two this summer. Enjoy.

And stop hitting your sister.