Summer

This time tomorrow I will be frantically shoving scrambled eggs in my kids mouths and trying desperately not to be late for the first day of school. So, today I sit here in the quiet while my girls get one last sleep-in, enjoying my coffee and pre-breakfast cookie, waiting for them to emerge from their room sleepy-eyed and snuggly and not in any sort of rush at all.

It's been the summer of water (lakes, sounds, oceans, creeks, pools, spray parks, wading pools, waterparks and sprinklers), of gymnastics and soccer and sports and swimming and biking. It was the summer of lost teeth, skinned knees and sandy feet. The summer of illness, too. It's been the summer of our backyard - parties and sprinklers and trampoline jumping; 'soup making' and flower crowns and tea parties and so many dinners on the deck. We went to war with the wasps and fed flies to the spiders and painted rocks and sold lemonade. We ate 'summer cereal' and too many treats, played board games on the deck and told bedtime stories on the trampoline as Thea crawled all over us. We sang Moana at the top of our lungs and would stay in the same clothes for days on end. It's been a summer of perfect weather and wide open windows. We had a July filled with big, special trips and an August filled with simple, special days. It was the summer Thea stopped being a little baby, Etta finished with diapers and Anna learned to braid her own hair. It was the summer of 'sisters' where an already tight bond grew immeasurably stronger which means, of course, it was the summer of bickering, too. It was the summer where I didn't get a moment to myself, checked nothing off my 'to do' list and didn't mind nearly as much as usual. It was a summer that wasn't as perfect as now it sounds, filled with its own frustrations big and small, and plenty a plaintiff 'what are we going to do today?' but now on this last day this is what I remember.

And I am so grateful.