Summer Scaries

   Summer is creeping upon us way too quickly. Especially when it's already been pushing 100 degrees for a few weeks here in Texas and we're making pool plans as much as possible, but it’s basically here and I’m over here having some stress. Parenting during the summer can be insanely hard. I’m learning this more and more as the boys get bigger, as the ages of my children are more diverse. When they were little each day had it’s perfect little routine, early morning, head to the gym for a run, meet up with some pals at a splashpad, home for naps. I knew what the day would look like and where my break would be. No one told me that as my kids get bigger, and toss in a baby, you’re never really sure if/when you’re break is going to be. I’ve tried so hard to be disciplined about rest time during the baby’s nap but to be honest, I don’t get out the door early in the morning like I did when the bigs were babies. We’re ready to leave about the time the baby needs to nap, boys raring with energy and the baby and I ready to chill hard. Blah, blah, basically I’m stressing because it feels like there’s no routine and I thrive on routine since becoming a mom, simply because it’s how I know I get what I need. So with routine tossed to the wind, I’m staring down the barrel of summer break, eyes wide and breaking out in a cold sweat.

Let’s also talk about being a stay at home mom. And being a stay at home mom during the summer. I’ll be honest, lately I’ve felt a bit weird about being a stay at home mom. True, I am one of those people who probably think way too much about what others think of me, how I’m perceived and all that, and I have put a bit of pressure on myself to ‘do something with my life’. I’ve entered a new stage of life and motherhood where very, very few of my mom friends are stay at home moms. Actually, just one or two are. Since leaving the church a few years ago and the shifting of my friend group that seemed to inevitably come with that, I no longer have a stay at home mom squad to hang out with on the regular. I know times are changing but you can still find the majority of stay at home moms in the evangelical scene. I could talk a while on the push/pull of the evangelical stay at home is gold and the feminism outlook that women can do it all, which we totally can, but it's hard AF. But I won't today, ha. It's just been a weird change going from friends who have the same schedule to friends that can only really hang out on the weekends. I think I just feel a bit on the fringe and a tad lonely, yet at the same time I don't have the time for play dates like I did with two small kids. I feel a bit lost when I want to hang out with a friend and their kids during the week or on a day off of school, or, you know, on the endless days of summer. Most of the boy’s friends are in after school programs and they want to be with them. It’s just weird being over here, on this side of things now. During the pandemic I didn't notice it as much, but now it's for sure more prevalent. I don't see my friends at the gym like I used to. It's just different. A deep sense of the movement of life. 

 

Back to summer, I find myself envying the working moms that just sign their kids up for camps (although I know that is a feat in itself, it was insanely difficult to the get the boys into reasonably priced camps every other week) and move along and keep their routine. There’s also a high chance I’m romanticizing that because I do have a working mom friend that often talks about feeling guilty about putting her kids in camps all summer so she can work or that the hours aren't ideal, work getting cut short. I’ve also been noticing how much pressure I put on myself to have an epic summer for the kids. It’s built in my head that summers for children are outdoor activities, pools, ice cream, late nights, fireflies and friends galore. Never mind that most of my own summers growing up I had a baby sitter. Ruth was great, she had energy and made us what we wanted for lunch and played endlessly with us. We had fun summers, but I think I put that pressure on myself to have that kind of summers for my kids even though I’m the mom and utterly exhausted most days. I think it’s just this weird thing of mom guilt and my own expectations being way too high. My sister in law has frequently said to me, “I got tired of working so hard for my kids to have fun, I’m not doing it all the time any more”. I feel that. I feel the so tired of working so hard for them to have fun, when most adventures I’m super excited about they spend the entire time whining. Maybe I just need to let it go a bit. Relax. What I think it all comes down to is that I love my kids so crazy much I want the most epic summer for them, especially post pandemic, but maybe they do need to be bored a little bit (again, ha) and (re)learn to use their imagination. Maybe my tendency to want them best for them and go to all lengths to get it, isn’t the best for them. If the pandemic taught me anything is that simple plans and open days really can be the best. Hard to remember when we're starting to move and do more again. I remember why I don't mind living in a smaller house with no yard. Terrible during pandemic, not so bad normally when there's a city full of things to do. 

This positioning of life has been on my mind a lot recently, again, just trying to find my place, find what’s right for me. So much weighing of pros and cons of both sides, working more than 2 hours a week or continue staying home. I think the drowning sensation that comes with summer break is heightening it, makes me want to escape the house. That, and the housing market being utterly insane. Nothing like knowing you could save some cash monies for a ridiculously expensive house in Austin faster if you were contributing to the income a bit more than a few spin classes a week. On top of that, just feeling a bit more ready to do something more, feeling antsy around the house, more energetic now that I’ve caught up from the baby fatigue and feeling more myself. Mostly I just tell myself, survive the summer, try to have fun and not yell a ton and I'll look into prospects in the fall, as it seems summer puts my life on hold. And maybe I need to not let it put my life on hold, maybe that’s a hang up in my thinking. I can still thrive too, damnit, I know it’s possible, I’ve done it before! 

 

 

    I do also think this time of year just makes my anxiety run rampant (this time of year and any major holiday ha). I'm easily overwhelmed and there's so much to be overwhelmed by. End of season soccer, graduation for my PreK kid, getting library books back to school, gifts all around, graduation cards I need to mail out stuffed with money, a wedding the day after the last day of school in another state - dressing my kids in semi formal (supposed to be formal but as cute as the boys would be in a suit, I can't find energy for that), travel, my work schedule changing. Okay here's the truth, I don't do well with change, at all. No matter how seemingly small it is. What I see coming is not only three months of not having a routine, I see my boys aging, getting bigger, changing. Suddenly I'm about to have a second grader and a kindergartner. They already seem so much older than when they started school last fall. Their lives are full of friends and soccer and playdates and activities and boundless energy to get out. Frankly, they're so much fun.They're big, their brains are coming up with clever, hilarious, entertaining things. It's another era. I look at moms I see walking the trail pushing their double stroller with littles in it and I actually ache that that is no longer my boys. I love the space I have now from that nonstop mom life of two littles, but I also am reminded it'll never be like that again.

 

 

(Clement learning the best way to get through domestic chores is with an audiobook)

     I know that I am in the throes of the good old days. I’m deeply aware of the impermanence of this situation. On one side I have two older boys who are gone for eight hours a day five days a week and on the other side a baby who needs me all the time, constantly, like they used to. It’s an odd contrast and it shows you exactly what is coming. At night, I keep dreaming I’m pregnant and I think it’s largely because I see the impermanence of this. The baby is growing too fast. She’s almost not a baby at all any more even though, obviously, she always will be to our little family. I absolutely don’t want more kids but sometimes I toss it around just because I don’t want this to end, even though I've spend so much time the past almost eight years wishing it (the baby stage) would end, that they would be bigger and need me less. As Susan Cain talks about in her book Bittersweet, that is the human condition we all have, we abhor the impermanence of the good, the sweet in our lives. It always will come to some kind of end, there will always be change and inevitably, death. It was in the middle of these feelings that I picked her book up and it has done nothing but made me cry while also feeling the connection of being resonated with, that everyone feels this in someway or another. I dream of freedom, of working, writing, moving about in the world on my own, but in another way I’m devastated that the good old days are going so fast (but also, I do think a babysitter does indeed help me be more present with the current life moment that is quickly flying by, ha). The complexity of our humanity. Of the situation of our lives as we inhabit this earth. The ever-changing. The pain and the beauty. How we can feel all these things at the same time. Despair, relief. They're older (yay), they're older (boo). I'm not sure I'd actually go back to two kids under 3 years of age (no, no I wouldn't- maybe for a few hours- including nap times, ha), but there is just something about the third and final kid that makes you long for the baby years, the way it is/was. Simply because it will never be again.

 

    So somehow that really drifted and wandered around. Welcome to my brain lately, ha. I rarely get more than two hours to put thoughts and ideas together, so largely, I'm not the most
concise person at the moment. But honestly I think that's the magic of parenting, realizing what you're capable of. Especially moms. The amount of tabs open in our brains, thinking through a billion needs and logistics - mostly not for ourselves at all - and yet, yet, we're still able to do so much. So anyway, all that to say, the beginning of a summer signals an end for me, an end that makes me wonder about new beginnings. It signals a passing of time while simultaneously has me looking for a way to pass the time of summer without losing my mind. Godspeed this summer friends.

**And naturally all this processing comes with a photo dump of the month's photos on my camera, which are mostly Zora since the boys don't like to be documented any more, ha.