Simple Summer

As summer nears I always find myself checking all of the area events and making a Summer Bucket List.  I make stops at Wal-Mart & Hobby Lobby to pick up simple crafts for the toddler, moderate crafts for the big kids, and elaborate crafts for myself.

I buy new popsicle molds and tell myself we will only eat homemade frozen treats, so I can be sure I know the ingredients.

Then we stop at Dollar Tree and buy a couple boxes of freeze pops for those days when we’re too busy to make homemade popsicles.  I imagine we will eat them on the go occasionally, because I’m a ‘fun mom’.

I fill in every square on our calendar with something.  Games, Go-Kart races, day trips (so many day trips), visits with friends, visits with family, church, potlucks, fireworks, parades, the list goes on and on and on and on…

Then summer actually comes.  Each day goes by so quickly, and each night when I go to bed I feel like I’ve been pulled in a hundred directions.  I haven’t done the crafts, but I’ve crafted the art of breaking up backyard fights.  We haven’t made the homemade popsicles more than a couple of times, and the store bought ones were depleted and refilled a handful of times with in the first month.

I struggle between feeling guilty because I didn’t plan well enough,  and I feel angry because I’ve planned so much and it didn’t turn out.

 

Dear friend, maybe you feel this way too when summer comes.  It goes by so quickly and we sometimes feel like we’ve wasted it all, or screwed it all up somehow.

I have a suggestion.  Let’s quit gripping our plans so tightly and just roll with the punches instead.  How about we stick our toes in the sandbox with the kids and not worry so much about ‘everything else’. 

I know laundry needs to be done, the kids need fed, and they need play time with their momma as well as their friends.  My husband and I need afternoons working in the garden while our children play close by, we need family walks and fun dinners on a picnic blanket in the backyard.  That’s what needs to happen, and that’s what would go on my list this summer… if I were making a list.