I Truly Enjoy My Kids

This is a mom you’d want to interview or shadow for a day. In fact, I have done that. Her three kids just pretty much obey. She actually enjoys them. She’s happy almost every time I see her. When she speaks, I listen. She bleeds orange and blue. Warrrrr Eagle, Hey!

I always find myself spending a lot of time reflecting when school gets started.

Perhaps it’s because I love summer SO much and I always hate to see it end.

This summer was especially hard for me to let go.

And as I’ve been reflecting, my thoughts keep coming back to this picture.

In so many ways this picture sums up what I felt so often this summer; a summer spent watching my three beautiful children grow together, learn together, play together. As I told a friend recently, I truly enjoyed my children this summer. Don’t get me wrong, I love my children like crazy. But, past summers have often been more work than fun. Do you know what I mean? In the past my beach vacations frequently consisted of sitting on the beach, trying discretely to nurse a baby, while trying to keep the two year old from throwing sand at the four year old. This summer my beach vacation consisted of seeing who could make the biggest splash, running along the sand chasing crabs back into their hidey-holes, and lounging on a chair admiring seashells as each child brings me their latest find. I developed new relationships with my children this summer and watched as they continued to develop deeper relationships with each other.

It’s hard to let this go; this summer where they are still so little, sweet, and precious and yet in the very beginning stages of asserting their independence. It’s such a short, sweet time and will be gone so quickly. It’s moments like these I want, more than ever, to find a way to freeze time so I can just soak up these sensations a little bit longer.