Summer Sprint

Oh, hey, summer!

Man, I’ve been looking forward to summer. Splashing in the pool, spending time outdoors in nature, playing volleyball in the backyard…

Oh, wait. That’s my kids, not me. I’ve been the one schlepping them to swimming lessons and furiously trying to work under an inadequate pool umbrella, setting alarms to wake everyone up and get them ready for camp (and then another alarm to pick them up on time), and zipping around with a watering can trying to keep my plants alive in the sweltering heat while the kids hit the ball back and forth in the shade.

In other words, every year, without fail, I forget how much work summer is!

Three weeks of summer have passed and I have yet to get my bearings. During that time, my bestie from California visited with her kids for a week. It was a fabulous time spent with our two families, but when we weren’t hanging out I was taxiing my youngest daughter to the numerous things I stupidly signed her up for. Then my mom stayed here for two nights. Then it was Father’s Day. Then I forgot a while back I made reservations in the city for dinner. It’s been nonstop. What was I thinking? I can’t do it all!

Summer already means normal stuff like work, meetings, and regular housework, then you add on yardwork. Yardwork in 90° weather. Then the kids are home, blasting Sabrina Carpenter or some other singer I am to uncool to recognize. Or they’re leaving their dishes around, bringing in grass clippings from outside onto the rugs, or squealing about an ant in their room. It’s loud, it’s messy, and it’s chaos.

Still, I love it.

That’s the thing—when school ends, despite the madness about to descend, I breathe a sigh of relief. We’re together. I know where they are. They are young enough yet that I can keep tabs on them or I’m accompanying them to whatever it is they’re doing, like swim lessons. Someday they’ll be off to college/out in the big ol’ world, and my husband and I will be in this quiet, clean, peaceful house all by our lonesome, feeling like we’re missing a piece of ourselves.

Summer goes by too fast, because of the extra activities, but also because it’s finite. The start of school will be here before we know it, and the kids will be a year further in their scholastic journey. A year closer to adulthood and independence.

Any time they’re hogging the bathroom, or the ball they kicked crashes into a new bush I’ve planted, or they drip ice cream on the floor, I’ll try to remember how quick this goes.

Next week, we have no camps or lessons to dash off to. It happens to be my birthday, too. I hope I can slow down, catch up on things I’ve been slacking on, and make some memories with my husband and kids. I’ll probably take way too many photos as usual. I’ll turn another year older.

I can’t make time stop, so I just have to savor it.

Now I gotta run—time to pick up my daughter from camp!