Dear Summer,
You win.
Okay, in all fairness, you actually have been quite kind to us this year. Really, you have. But with a month left to go before school is back in full-swing, I feel like I’ve hit a wall. I’m starting to doubt my ability to make it. Our ability to make it. I’ve run out of activities. And I’ve heard “mom, I’m bored” or “mom, there’s NOTHING to DO” one too many times.
Exhibit A:
Moments after muttering something about how pitifully borrrrring her four year old existence is, the guilty party was introduced to baseboards. As my luck would have it, the child thought this was the BEST THING EVER and proceeded to scrub every baseboard/wall/scrubbable-surface in sight. So pretty much I’ve yet to determine if my plan backfired or if it was my most brilliant parenting move to date.
Speaking of this whole “brilliant parenting” concept, I decided to get all Michelle Duggar on my kids recently. You see, the woman never raises her voice. She has a small army of children and somehow always manages to keep her cool. Always. She speaks to her kids in such a sweet, quiet little voice that sometimes I wonder if her film crew spikes her drinks with sedatives. Now, I love the Duggars and find her parenting methods fascinating… which is precisely why I took it upon myself to channel her sweetness and attempt the precious-whisper method of discipline this week.
Y’all, apparently we’re just not sweet enough for that to work. My kids looked at me like I had finally lost it. They gave me the blank faced stare of confusion and were all “woman, if you think we’re going to stop our shenanigans because of this dainty little whisper, then you better think again.” Identity crisis over. We’re not Duggar material.
Don’t get me wrong, we do have our sweet moments…
However, please note: the initiator of this preciousness just so happens to NOT share our DNA. Figures.
So we have one more month until we get back into the rhythm of the school-year routine. Except not really because OH YEAH just one month into the school year, I’m scheduled to get my shoulder sliced and diced and screwed back together and (pleaseLordplease) finally fixed. Which will put me fo real out of commission for entirely too long. You guys, I don’t do “out of commission” gracefully. I don’t even wanna talk about it. Think Michelle Duggar will offer me a sip of whatever she’s drinking?
But that’s the future. I’m so above spending my waking hours googling the ins and outs of my diagnosis. Or staring wide-eyed at gruesome surgical footage on YouTube. You guys, I work IN HEALTHCARE and am entirely too professional and mature for that kind of nonsense. Sheesh. Plus, it’s AUGUST. We have mere weeks until the pace of life shifts once again.
So we’ll soak up the lazier schedules, the pool days, and the popsicle-stained faces. And we’ll just survive the less-than-stellar days because that’s okay too. For when they say “the days are long, but the years are short”… those long days? They can seem like eternity sometimes. A loud, messy, napless eternity. Sometimes.
But I’m reminded with each passing year how quickly these stages fly by. I feel like I just became a parent, and yet three kids later, our house is now oddly void of cribs and footie pajamas. Just. like. that. Does it make me sad? Not exactly. Do I, in light of this realization, stop periodically pining away for the kids’ bedtimes? Uh, no. Because some days are just rough.
Yes the years are short. And the days? They are busy and full of laughter and mostly joyful. And sometimes really exceptionally long. Especially in August.
