My fridge is full of summer fruits, cold brew, and iced tea. There are towels and swimsuits hanging everywhere, including on our mesquite tree, which is our redneck clothesline. Maya’s out of school, so I’m introducing summer hours for the blog.
I began scoping summer camps in March, registering in April, and scouring the internet weekly for more options. No lie: getting into summer camp is actually harder than snagging tickets to the Eras Tour. This months-long labor has resulted in me cobbling together 6 child-free hours each week in June and zero hours in July. We didn’t have $400/week to put her in art camp or anything frou frou, so we default again to mom labor. I could choose to be resentful of that, but Insta has the answer for me:
Content like this is why we should disassemble the entire internet.
Yesterday I lived up to that hype though. The morning was unusually cool, so Ki Jae and I did two bike races. He’s on a balance bike, and he was reluctant to learn it at first. I made our rides into a race to intrigue him. This looks like me riding beside him on a black scooter, doing my best NASCAR announcer imitation. If you were to visit our neighborhood around 9am daily, you’d hear me hollering, “Black car takes the inside but green car swerves to cut him off. Coming up to the turn! Green car zooms ahead!” We finish each ride with popsicles.
We didn’t want to go inside afterward, so we bike raced again to watch the cars on the big road outside our neighborhood. It sprinkled enough to make mud, so he had a Demolition Derby (a la Cars 3) at the bottom of our driveway. Then Maya and I went to a Fairy Tea Party at our local toy store. We finished the evening with the kids playing with a neighbor.
If that isn’t idyllic childhood, I don’t know what is. For me, it involved a lot of cleaning up mud, patience with the dozens of other patrons of the Fairy Tea Party, and not caring about anything else that didn’t get done yesterday. I chose to focus on the kids, and it was heart-warming for all of us. I share yesterday’s activities to say that it was a real banner day, a kickoff to summer that felt special. It was the equivalent of delivering the proposal at work. Now we can all relax for a few days.
But ONLY 18 summers! I gotta make today EVEN BETTER! And do this EVERY DAY until mid-August! Nah, fam. Don’t buy into that. The moments can’t all be big. If you ask my kids what’s special about summer, they will tell you: FCA camp. Watermelon and cherries. Pool. We don’t do these things daily or even weekly, but over the course of several months, they add up to something special. We have routines: morning drinks on the couch, bedtime books, sitting down to dinner as a family. All those small things add up to big love.
Which is why I aspire to feel zero guilt about the days I don’t entertain my kids. The days I put on movies. The hour I tell them to go to their rooms and not bother me or each other, daily. Boredom is the genesis of creativity, and I think it’s good for them to practice independence. Sure, I’ve got 18 summers, but did you know that I also have fifteen more yearrrrrrrrs of making dinner and them rejecting it?
Honestly, I do have a resentment of summer. It’s a season where I put myself aside to focus more on the kids. My precious 6 hours get used up quickly: on communications, on house projects, on working out. I’ve got two more weeks with this breather, then it’s all kids all the time. The work is relentless and nonstop; I’m a full zombie after 8pm because it’s been a 13-hour workday every day.
Honestly again though, I chose this life. I loved serving my kids yesterday. I look forward to the daily bike race, and maybe my kids will actually learn to swim this year if I put in some work. I will appreciate time to write even more in September because I won’t have had it. I don’t think it’s bad to put yourself aside for a greater good, with reasonable boundaries and a timeframe. I’ll get a few mornings off here and there, and I’ll have evenings with friends. Date nights. Sleep-ins every Saturday. I’m not saying that it’s prison.
What I am saying is that it’s exhausting, even when it’s fun and fulfilling. That I won’t have an abundance of emotional energy to begin writing after the kids go to bed. That I cannot, in fact, have it all right now. It’s important to make peace with the seasons and rhythms of our lives, even when not every season serves me exclusively or first.
James and I have been focused on truth-telling lately, or on breaking down the lies we tell ourselves. I don’t want to say that I must make magical summer days at my own expense because I’m a mom martyr. I also don’t want to buy into the narrative that having kids prevents me from “living my best life”.
The truth is that momming involves a whole slew of complicated emotions, that we as selfish beings will always crave more time for selfish ends, and that a healthy family involves clear communication and boundaries so that we all share in the emotional labor. But that won’t fit on an Insta post, so you got the whole blog instead.
I might continue publishing a few times a month, I might go on some spree and post 3 things in a week, or you might not hear from me all summer. We’ll be at the pool or eating watermelon. Summer food is such a wonderful season, and I’ve made some really delicious things lately, which I’d love to share:
Hummus - Tomato - Cucumber from Smitten Kitchen (my fave cook!) We served with grilled chicken thighs.
Cocoa Grain-No-La from Daphne Oz It’s good with yogurt and fantastic with vanilla ice cream.
Southern Living's Blackberry Cobbler (I did 1/2 blackberry and 1/2 peaches. Add the vanilla and the lemon zest.)
Moving away from the laptop, into the kitchen. Away from the screen and into the sun. I’ve got some juicy writing (dissolution of a friendship, religious crisis, etc) queued up, but I trust you’ll still be around if/when those are ready to publish. I have felt an internal pressure to publish a few times monthly, and this is a nice opportunity to release that small "should” voice in favor of a slower pace. May your summer contain joy, delicious foods, and big love.