summertime miracles. and other things less miraculous.

It’s 8:18am, and my kids are still asleep.  Every one of them.  If it wasn’t Kids Week at our church (our equivalent of VBS, aka the Most Exhausting Week of the Summer, Maybe Even Year), I’d be terrified that something horrific happened.  But I’ve checked on 1/3 of my kids, and he’s breathing (taking a cue from my husband, I conducted my own risk analysis on the decision to check in on the other 2/3.  The risk was so not worth it.), so clearly I need to do something very productive.  Like post an absurd number of pictures of THE BEST SUMMER EVER.  The summer in which any semblance of sibling rivalry flew out the window.  In which my darling cherubs dutifully completed chores from Pinterest-inspired chore charts.  In which 8pm bedtimes arrived just too quickly for my liking.

Ahem.

It really has been a great summer so far.  However, when a friend of mine asked yesterday if I ever lose my temper with my kids because I seem “just so calm and put together”, I laughed.  Hard.  And clued her into the previous hour of my life.  You know, the hour during which I sweetly informed my daughter that if I heard one more utterance of any variation of my name spoken aloud ANY MORE TIMES THAT DAY, my head would explode.  (She said my name again, and I made a loud explosion sound that startled her to the point of tears.  I totally need to author a parenting book.)

I have decided this morning, however, that I am a much better parent when my kids wake up after 6am.  Sleeping past 7am?  Playdoh and glitter and fingerpaint for everyone!!  Never mind the fact that I have not yet had the chance to, oh you know, actually parent this morning because of this aforementioned miracle.  I just feel the Stellar Parenting Vibes radiating out of me.  And not just out of guilt from the faux-head-explosion-scene yesterday.  Or maybe a tiny bit.

Okay.  So the pictures.  In no particular order.  With no cute captions.  But copied and pasted onto this blog because, when my children one day sit in their therapists’ office recalling that time mom threatened to explode at the mention of her name, I will be able to point them to these pictures of their childhood summertime bliss and ask, “Oh dear, grown, hopefully-out-of-the-house child of mine, do you NOW see why your mother was so worn out by 5pm?  Why she started twitching at the 27,000th “mommymommymommy”? Now, go and do likewise with your own children and report back to me how it feels.  K, thanks.”

It’s now 9:02am.  The kids are awake and sitting in front of Netflix.  I’d take a picture of that too, but I’ve got an image to maintain here, people.