I finally embraced summers when I met my husband. Long hours of daylight meant there was time for golf, outdoor concerts and meticulously prepared gourmet picnics. Reduced summer hours at our jobs allowed us long weekends away or unhurried Friday afternoons at beer gardens, which often seemed to slide into sultry evenings dining outdoors. It was a magical time and I sulked when the first fall breeze sent goose bumps up my bare arms. I longed to make it last just a little longer.
Summer as a parent is a season of extremes; both endless and fleeting.
When the kids were babies, summer seemed to go on forever. With no school or sports schedules to work around, we’d wander aimlessly from library to coffee shop to art class to impromptu park picnic of yogurt puffs and juice boxes. There was always time in my stay-at-home-mom schedule for ice cream and the kids ran until they dropped, often napping in the stroller. I’d pretend to read, head bobbing from time to time until I dropped my book, closing my eyes behind sunglasses, giving in. It was unplanned and glorious.
Now that my boys are school age, there’s an expectation for parents to fill every moment from late June through Labor Day with activities and events and "memorable moments" causing the summer to fly by. I struggle to balance planned and unplanned days and nights. Suddenly, it seems, it’s August and we are thinking about school supplies again.
I admit to bouts of guilt some days when I deposit my boys into the melee of the sunscreen-coated kids at the local Park District Camp and head off to work. I know that they love it there, bounding with sweaty-haired abandon into all the activities and meeting new friends their age. But sometimes I pause, both proud of them for jumping in and wishful for the time when they needed me more.
We still find time for our own summer
adventure days – trips
downtown to the
Crown Fountain and
lunch in the park, an
escape to the cool
cave of a jumpy-house
place, a trip to the
pool or beach with
requisite ice cream
from a cart – but the
truth is that we need
time away from each
other. They need it to
run around and learn
social skills and I need
the time to work but
also for much-
deferred personal
time.
Sometimes my husband and I plan Friday afternoon lunch dates while the boys are at camp. It’s a flashback to when it was just the two of us, if only for an hour or two. Other days I take time to read, catch up with friends or ride my bike along the lake. Self-care isn’t something that comes easily, even though I know that carving out this time to recharge makes me a better mom and wife the rest of the time. I try to think of it as Mommy’s Summer Camp and it’s pretty great. I might make myself a T-shirt.
But even during some of those moments of quiet, I reminisce about our summer days, remembering their chubby feet splashing through puddles, how their round, toothless, grinning faces were always sticky with some residual melted treat. They’d run to me, arms outstretched, ready for a hug and then they’d careen back through the water spray again on toddling legs, squealing with delight. I miss those babies and our endless summers.