Dear You (Me),
It is the middle of summer and I thought I might make you a little list, you know, the truth about summer, so you feel just a bit better when debating running away on a dog sled in your forgiving sweater, skinny jeans and favorite boots this winter.
1. Remember those long winter days when you had to come up with an afternoon craft or bake cookies to keep everyone from dueling swords for five whole minutes? Well let me just remind you… unless you pack up everything but the kitchen sink and head out somewhere to sweat buckets, those summer crafts and cookie making disasters last all. day. long. You’ve forgotten by now but the glitter was out by 6 a.m and the cap for the glue wasn’t found until stepped on at 10 p.m. (see #4)
2. You know how when you get cold earlier you just add on one more layer of clothes? Forgiving, muffin-top, pale leg covering clothes? Well the four year-old can’t count high enough to tally the number of days it’s been over 90 and there are only so many pieces of clothing you can take off once you are over the age of 5. Unless you find a family nudist colony, which sounds fun to no one ever in the history of the reality of what aging does to our bodies and what stray camp fire sparks can feel like when hitting a highly sensitive area.
3. Yesterday you picked your son up from school, he came out happy and bubbling and hugging you like crazy because oh-my-gosh he hadn’t seen you in the three whole hours that you spent grocery shopping with less children, less carseat buckling and less fighting. Well guess what, there is no “yesterday” in the summer. There is no picking anyone up who is happy to see you, you only do fun things which are, well, fun, yet covered with sweaty children uninterested in peeling themselves from you or you pick them up from doing fun things and they roll on the floor in protest of leaving which is, well, not fun.
4. You are probably reading this at 8 p.m. because the kids are sleeping. Because it is already dark. I am writing this to you at 1 a.m., because the kids are sleeping. Because it is one of the only three hours of the whole day when it is actually dark. No amount of room darkening shades, towels under the door or covering of every crack of light with duct tape can convince your children to please go to bed so Mommy can have a glass of wine or please stay asleep so Mommy can drink her coffee while it’s hot. It’s light out. They feel it in their energy-filled bones.
5. When is the last time you have thought about sunscreen? Three months ago? Maybe four? Maybe you are still having nightmares about how it mixes with sand and turns into an exfoliating scrub for a three year-old who you are chasing across a beach while calculating the damage of the rays already touching the glowing white skin he inherited from Yours Truly. Do me a favor, go outside, just for a minute and take the kids and clink icicles or something, cheer to the fact that you have not slathered a single one of them with sunscreen just so they could put a toe out the back door.
Okay and this is the part maybe you shouldn’t read or maybe you should. Despite the sunscreen, the sleep (or lack of) and the deep rooted fear of bikini wearing, you are loving summer and the freedom to head to the beach and not pack lunches and how you’ve even managed to get a little tan even though you never get to sit still. You spend winter wishing it would speed up and you spend summer wishing is would slow down. Maybe you should just try to love it all, the snowsuits and the sunscreen, because when you are a mom it all goes by faster than that one day you had all to yourself or the five minutes you had to write a blog post in the middle of day when everyone was exhausted from a day of soaking it up.
Love,
Me
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‘sparks in a sensitive area, duct tape to block the light, exfoliating scrub sunscreen’…. LOL funny. The baby came running over and started giggling with me, obviously clueless as to why but when summer comes and I’m putting the exfoliating scrub on her sensitive skin- I’ll cringe and giggle again. haha
Oh my goodness. I so love this. I absolutely love the character and anticipation of each and every season, each of them offering a new and exciting story all their own:) XO
Amen! I. Love. Summer. but, I just know that I’ll love the 8:00 bedtime and getting into jammies at 6:00 because it’s already dark and everyone is already yawning. Summer time 8:00 is worlds different from winter time 8:00, that is for sure. In good and bad ways! 🙂
You captured that perfectly!! And today I am secretly (well maybe not so secret now…I never could keep a secret) wishing that it were raining so that I could keep them all home and get some cleaning and organizing done without guilt. Maybe I should save that for the winter. I enjoyed reading that and I look forward to reading more. See you at 1am!
I will stash this little gem for a snowy day. 😉
I’m laughing over here. I so know both sides of this. Well, with less kids. But the same idea.
Good and hard, woven together. The more of one, the one of the other, right?
I’ll take the summer over the winter any day but really they are both good because I can use the seasons as excuses to buy new clothes. 😉
I am a summer fiend. No matter how hot it gets, I refuse to complain (I complain all winter long, so I try not to be THAT person (cough – Mark) who complains all year long. The minute it turns to fall, I am uncomfortable, chilly, angry that the sun has departed.
This is a lovely mid-season reminder, though. And it’s beautiful, showing what you cherish and how important it is to just take in the moment (even if we’ve been relegated to tank tops and underwear).
I don’t care if I have swoobs….or other sweats like of the meat variety…I will take on the 100+ degree heat.
Bring it.
Really? Does this mean we have to eat on the patio when we finally meet for lunch?
Can you believe how damn hot it is?? I admit I’m not wearing much these days.lol
I know, it’s been crazy-hot. I always thought I liked the heat until this summer, now I’m just a fan of air conditioning.
You mean you’re not wearing much under what you’re wearing, no? ;op
You and all of your problems with summer:) Looks like you have issues with winter as well. Any seasons you do like?:)
Love love love summer. Even with the endless amounts of sunblock I apply to my children all the time. I joke that there hasn’t been a picture of me at the beach not holding sunblock in 12 years. Sad, but true.
But you are right that we need to enjoy every minute!
Thank you putting it all into perspective. And you are so absolutely right – time goes incredibly fast with young children. Take care. xo
Oh I love this idea. I think in the winter you need to write the same letter to your summer self. I love the summer (and you have to get Neutrogena wet skin kids spray.. no exfoliating just spray and they can be WET!).
I will have to try the Neutrogena brand. We bought a different brand of spray and my kids hate it for some reason, they run from it just like they do from me when I have a handful of lotion.
Hahaha!! Oh Jessica, this rings very true, however, I’m a total lover of summer and everything that goes along with it, because I hate winter SO much, and am SO miserable in January and February, that I will never complain about the heat 😉
Also, I will have 3 kids in school this year, and that just scares the crap out of me…we were barely out the door on time for 2!
This is a good perspective! I’ve been freaking out about the summer coming to an end, but I love this 🙂
Look, if I’m not bitching about the cold, I’m bitching about the heat.
But I did notice last Winter than I didn’t have to help one kid with gloves. It was like Heaven!
m.
Well at least each season brings something new to complain about.
This made me giggle, because yes, there are pros and cons to both extremes, and sometimes it’s easy to forget that wishing either of them away means speeding up their childhoods at a speed no one wants 🙂
I have nothing but love for summer!