Summer

Oh, glory! IT is here! Well, actually, I write this having one more partial day of work ahead of me, but I have no actual work to do (shh! Don't tell. Someone might find something for me.), so I'm not really counting it. Maybe one of the reasons I became a teacher really was June and July. They are definitely why I don't want to leave the teaching profession!

As I sit on the cusp of long days of living like a pro-athlete (a girl can dream, can't she?), I can't help but feel a slight sense of panic. Life has become so very different now that I have TWO sons in high school. Like the sand on the beach, I'm starting to feel the moments with my sons slipping through my hands, leaving behind just a few grains of memories.

Now that they're older, there is that temptation to just let them do. To let them go their own ways with their friends, so that I can do. All those things that I never could with them hugging my legs or shouting, "MOM!" every 5 seconds. Yes, I'm enjoying finding "me" time again. Finding my handsome Groom again. But those "me" moments quickly turn into hours into days into weeks, and suddenly my oldest is looking down on me for conversation (in the literal, not the teenage, sense). And frankly, my youngest is, too. Shoulders are broader, jaws stronger, voices deeper. And it takes my breath away when I realize that for a minute, I didn't even recognize my young man in a crowd.

So, this summer, I've decided that I'm going to slow time. Yes. I am. This summer is the summer of the family "To Do." It's not original, and I'm not trying to claim it as such. We are going to create a treasure of some things that each of us want to do. And then we will force the whole family to participate. Because sometimes those things that you most DON'T want to do become the very things that you are most grateful that you've done.

Look, I'm not going to tell you this is the best idea ever and that you have to do it. And frankly, I'm not ever sure it's going to work. But I figure I have one last shot before these two kids start driving, so I'm going for it. Less social media, more family social time. Less "me" time, more mi familia time.

This is going to be THE best. summer. ever. And I'm going to drag my teens, eye rolling and grunting, into it.