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One highlight of the summer was
coaching Livi's baseball team. |
I'm going to admit right off the bat my summer wasn't at all what I had hoped and dreamed it would be. Every year as the school year winds down, I get giddy in anticipation of all the fun things I'm going to get to do with my kids. We'll go swimming and to the park and have picnics. I'll get all those little jobs done around the house I have neglected to do all school year. The house will be clean and the kids will love all the things I have planned and will be so grateful for everything we get to do and we'll never fight and life will be grand!
 |
We had some major
accomplishments this summer...
like riding bikes with no training
wheels! |
Except that's not how it went this summer. Instead of bursting with rainbows and unicorns and everything rosy, it festered with irritable kids and a short-tempered mom. Unfortunately, leftover anxiety from a stressful spring at work teaming up with kids going through some sort of "phase" left us in a crazy spiral of chaos.
Plain and simple, the kids and I were just not jiving this summer and I know they weren't the only ones to blame. I was as irritable as they were most days. I felt I was having a difficult time finding balance between work, home, and the kids' activities. Although I have a great job and get most of the summer off, I still work a few days during the months of June and July which has become increasingly difficult. In the past I have been able to be flexible to meet the needs of my clients/appointments, but as the kids have gotten a little older and involved in more activities it has become more difficult to balance a very part time work schedule with a very full time summer schedule. I felt like I just couldn't win. I wasn't bringing my A game at work or at home and I hate feeling that way.
 |
Lexi's personality definitely
was a bright spot in our
summer. She is always
doing and saying crazy
things! |
Another thing that really made summer a bit of a bummer was my daughter's behavior and anxiety. Both are not new but were for some reason heightened this summer. My daughter is a good kid, REALLY, but we just could not seem to get along. There was a lot of crying and yelling (from both of us) and I'm sure I could have handled many situations a lot better. The voices in my head compounded the problem making me doubt myself as a parent, "Am I being too tough on her? Should I be tougher on her? Shouldn't she be a little more grateful for everything we do for her? Shouldn't I be grateful she is such a good kid? Should I sweat the small stuff? Am I scarring her for life?!?!?"
Needless to say, it wasn't the best summer ever. This left me feeling a little disappointed as our summer came to an end with very little pomp and circumstance. Seriously, the weekend before school started I pretty much yelled orders at the kids because I was in such a panic about getting our house in order. I had the "I'm going back to work full time and I will NEVER be able to clean the house again, EVER!" mentality. This translated into me trying to organize our whole lives in a matter of one weekend while neglecting to do anything fun with my kids like I usually do to bid summer vacation farewell.
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| Lexi...our beach babe :) |
So this summer may not have been the best but as I reflected this past week (now that we have all parted ways), there were some good moments as well as some moments that I will never forget...coaching Livi's baseball team, Will learning how to ride his bike without training wheels, all of the crazy things Lexi said or did. We had good times and we had bad times...and sometimes we had terrible times but we got through it all.
This summer is just another reminder that our lives will go through phases. Sometimes things are going to get tough. We're going to fight. I'm going to struggle at being a working mom. We're going to have outside stressors (financial, behavioral, time constraints) placed on our family. We just have to figure out how to get through it, learn a few things while doing it, and get on to better times.
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| Will...very serious about sand castles! |
I did not have the perfect summer I had hoped for but life's not perfect. The important thing is I'm trying to learn from the difficult times in our lives and be grateful for everything we do have. I am grateful that I have a job with summers (mostly) off. I'm grateful I have healthy kids who are active and loving. I am grateful to have a husband who knows when I have reached the end of my rope and sends me out for a run to destress. I am grateful school has started but I am already looking forward to next summer. I know it's going to be great!
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| Livi...love this girl to the moon and back! |
Oh yeah...and we finally were able to conclude our summer with one last hurrah at the beach this past weekend. It was a nice finale on a hot, summer day.
