Summer Living

There’s just something wonderful about the pace of summer.  We have been very busy, beginning with a vacation, then company, then daily guests and outings.  But yet it’s been so nice to be home together.  Each morning, I sit down with my toast and tea and read the Bible, and am soon joined by my early-riser Becky, who sits quietly beside me eating her Eggo waffles and cereal (she’s a girl after my own heart – she loves breakfast!).  Then Susie meanders downstairs and the three of us chat or read together.  Pretty soon we hear the boys carrying on in their beds and we go upstairs to get them up, and the marvelous mayhem begins. We don’t have to rush around sticking lunchboxes in backpacks or finding a matching shoe while I fret we won’t make it down the driveway in time for the bus.  The girls can leisurely read a few books while I clean up breakfast, and then we all attempt to make a dent in the chores for the day and the kids are rewarded by watching a TV show while I bustle about and pick up the first wave of toys that have erupted out of the closets and bedrooms in only a matter of minutes.  Then we usually run an errand or go to the park or library, followed by lunch and naptime (boys asleep in their beds, girls playing in their room, me either exercising, cleaning or sleeping depending on my energy level!), then the kids can play while I get dinner ready, usually with the windows open so I can hear the scream of any kids who have collided on scooters or tackled an unsuspecting sibling, then we do some kind of evening outing to a park or ice cream or swimming and then we get to bed WAY too late because who wants to be in bed when it’s light and warm and FUN outside?! 

Throughout the day, I stop and look out my kitchen window at the beautiful, full green trees and, whether the weather is humid and stormy or still and sunny or whipping back and forth between the two, I sigh and marvel at how much I love summertime as a mom.  I love the kids sprawled out all over the house, the spontaneous playdates with neighbors, the pool lounging with guests, seeing all four of the kids playing with/yelling at/crawling upon/encouraging one another.  Because even when the tensions run high and I feel like my ears are going to literally fall off because of the decibel level in the house, I’m surrounded by my favorite little people in the world.  And in the summertime, I can take the time to talk to them, to read them longer passages of Scripture, to work harder with them on their memory verses, to answer their theological questions more fully (like Becky’s recent query about why the Lord put a tree in the Garden of Eden that he didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat, when he could have just made the Garden free of temptation and the possibility of sin).  Of course I can do these things during the school year, but those days are just so jam-packed that I don’t always take the time to sit and listen to the kids at length…as soon as the girls get home from school, it’s like a shot goes off inside my head marking the beginning of a race to complete playtime, dinnertime, bathtime, readingtime, and bedtime.  But in the summer?  The day is our own.  And it’s a beautiful day.