Images of Summer

It has happened again. Three full months of free-time and play and sunshine and slow have slipped between my fingers leaving behind them nothing more than the inflexible schedule of the rest of the year. My kids have been back in school for about two weeks and I still cannot believe they are gone.

At the beginning of the summer, it always feels like the freedom will last for so much longer than it ever really does. I want to make each day count but the reality is that most days are full of the mundane activities that pile upon one another to make up a week, a month, a summer... and then, there it is. The first day of school. A bit of panic settles inside me then as I hope and pray that we did enough, that I played enough, that I listened enough, provided enough, signed them up for enough... that I WAS enough for the four little blessings that I call my own.

I don't know if that happens to you... I try not to be a momma motivated by guilt but it is a slippery little thing that wiggles into my mind while I am busy doing other things. Then before I know it, it has fed upon my thoughts and turned them around into something that I never saw coming. Maybe it's how mommas are made. Maybe it is because we never feel we ARE doing enough. Whatever causes it... I am determined to fight it and let the pictures of the summer we DID have together wash over me in a warm and cleansing rain. Reality. Truth. Some of these I have shared with you. And there is more to see...

Like watching Josiah, previously afraid of all things pool, going down a water slide on the final day of swimming lessons, safely seated on the lap of his instructor...

Like watching my children, from my kitchen window, sitting at a table outside with watercolor paints before them, having a private art class with my mom as their teacher.

Like watching my four fall head over heels in love with a puppy we had thought we would be unable to bring into our family.

Like stumbling onto a picture perfect moment between that same puppy and my youngest children enjoying a a good book in a quiet moment.

Like watching my boys smiling faces against the backdrop of the city we love best...


Like, slowing my racing mind long enough to watch my children watch...


Like giggling with my daughter as she laughs with her friends... sweet little girls she has known her whole entire life...

Like slicing cucumbers with my children to serve with our dinner and eating fresh tomatoes just picked from the vine...

Like listening to my boys making plans for their toys and watching my daughter put her baby on the swings...

Like snuggling with my kids whose heads smell like sunshine...

Waking up late...

Finding the big dipper...

Running in the sprinkler...

Finding my kids hidden in trees...

Washing feet dirty from playing on blacktop...

Freedom and calm and all that is summer...

The pictures are clear. It was what it needed to be. Maybe we could have done more... maybe I could have BEEN more... But in the end, more was not needed and the summer was good. I won't let guilt come in and make it something it really never was. It was Summer 2008 and the pictures I share and those we were laughing too hard to take will help me to remember how it all went and looked and smelled and tasted...

Three months is not that long... and I am sad that it is over already... but in the end, it is all that we had and all that we needed and that will always be just enough.