Beautiful Summer

Well, my first official summer as a stay at home mom is coming to an end.  It seemed all too brief.  Where did the time go?  It seemed like only a few days ago that I was looking ahead at my new found freedom from employment (well, paid employment anyway) and wondering what all we would do over the coming months while the girls were out of school.  Now I am getting back to the evening routine of making lunches, scrambling to get everyone fed, bathed, read to, teeth brushed, pottied, etc.

Since my last blog entry - about a month ago -I am sorry to say that I've accomplished nothing in the way of good projects around the house.  Although to be fair, I have on occasion knelt down and scooped up the gigantic dog hair wad tumbleweeds that have been collecting in the corners throughout my home.  (I'm guessing that Dudley is shedding more than usual due to the oppressive heat we've experienced this summer?)  That's as much of a cleaning job as I've felt compelled to do.  Now that the kiddos will be in school, I should have reports of more cleaning/organizing in future posts.  Unless, that is, I become so sedentary that the hair wad tumbleweeds overtake me on the couch.  That is a very real possibility.

Also, since my last post, we've had our annual trek to the beach with my family.  I used to describe my family of origin by saying that we put the "fun" in dysfunctional.  I have learned over the years that there really isn't anything fun about the dysfunction (perhaps I'll write about that someday), but that we do have an awful lot of fun when we are together.  Everyone who goes on this beach trip is just hilarious.  We cannot have a meal together without several quotables emerging that stay with us for the rest of the week.  And we are weird - we never go out for meals at the beach.  The guys will go out for breakfast before golf, but that's it.  People ask me all the time for recommendations for good eats in Hilton Head.  I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I have no idea as we've never patronized any of them.  There's too many of us.  We'd miss out on too much in a noisy restaurant with awkward seating where we couldn't all interact with each other.  Not to mention the wonderful food and drinks we'd miss out on.

Yes, we cook our own meals starting with elaborate appetizers and ending with an even more elaborate and sinful dessert to cap off the evening.  All of the meals are comprised of our best recipes and each year we remark that it's the "best food we've ever had at the beach".  This year as with previous trips, as the week progressed, my collar and hip bones became less and less discernable.  Eating and drinking with complete abandon in just one week's time while fun, is not good on the figure.   And there are pictures to prove it.  Between my brother and I alone, we took over 2000 pictures.  That's not an exaggeration.  Not a typo.  Over 2000.  Just ridiculous.  I'm sure by the end of the trip, Mike was ready to chuck my camera into the ocean.  I was just scared that if I put down my camera or, gulp, left it in the house, I'd somehow miss out on the best-picture-taken-by-anyone-ever.  So it pretty much went with me anywhere I needed to go.  Which wasn't far.

Wake up.

Go downstairs for breakfast.

Go upstairs for bathing suit.

 Go downstairs for towels and sunscreen.

Go to beach.

Come in for lunch and bloody mary or whipped cream flavored vodka drink.

Go back out to beach.

Come in for shower.

Go downstairs for dinner and too much wine.

Go upstairs for advil and bedtime.

Repeat for seven days.

So, as you've gathered by now, the beach trip was fantastic just as it always is.  What's really gotten fun about it is that the older my children get, the more I get to see them experience what I always loved about our family vacations.  They enjoy the beach and playing in the sand and ocean more and more each year.  And they LOVE playing with all of their cousins.  The trips for them are very similar in many ways to the trips I took when I was their age with the same family members.  I grew up loving spending time with my cousins at the beach.  Meg is named "Meg" after my cousin, in fact.  When I use the restroom, I use the "john" because my cousin is named John.  Also, Mike and I have a "will" in case of our deaths (in case???) because another cousin of mine is named Will.  See how much we all mean to each other?

But to watch them experience and enjoy the humor that is always present with this group of people is really a touching thing for me. I hear people talk about needing a vacation after their vacation or dreading having to spend time with the family.  I have never really been able to relate to that because that beach trip is the one time of year I can really let my mind go and relax.  Something about the salty air and all of the memories from the 35+ years we've been doing this... it's kind of exceptional.  And the perfect way to put a close to this special summer I've had with my babies.

They are no longer babies, but they'll always be my babies.  And I had the pleasure of spending my summer with them unimpeded by the stresses of work.  We got to go to the beach twice.  We spent long weekends at the lake - sometimes as a family, sometimes with friends.  We took a couple of road trips.  We went to movies.  We had spend the night parties when daddy would travel.  We ate LOTS of pizza and popped LOTS of popcorn (much of which I would discover in my sheets for several days afterwards).  We did everything we wanted to do.  It was... lovely.

One thing that started close to the end of the summer but has quickly become one of my very favorite things to do with them is story time before bed.  It's not what you may be thinking - we've always read books at bedtime.  But one night, in an effort to calm Meg down in a crying spell due to exhaustion, I told them a story that I made up as I went.  To be honest, I don't even remember what it was about or who the characters were.  But they do.  The next morning they were talking about the storyline.  Asked about the characters - did they do this or did they like that.  They had really paid attention.  Much more so than when we read to them.

So every night they began begging me to tell more stories.  I would have to oblige since it it seemed to mean so much to them.  Since that first time, I've told them stories about a deer family.  There was one about a turtle named Tippy.  There was one about a new student at school who was having a bad day until someone went up and spoke to her.  After a particularly nasty day of the two of them fighting, I told them a story about two sisters names Sally and Sissy Sue who learned a very important lesson about the value of having a sister.  They hang on my every word.  It is such a sweet time that I get to spend with them.  The best way I know to describe it is sweet innocence.  I have no idea if they know that I'm making it up or if they really believe the stories are true.  I just know how much they look forward to that time we spend and I would not trade that feeling for anything.

This has been a beautiful summer.  Everything I had hoped it would be when I made the decision to walk away from a great job.  In a few weeks, Mike and I will celebrate our tenth anniversary.  I am so grateful to him for supporting my need to be home with the girls.  I have no idea where we'll be after the next ten years.  I'll likely be blogging about how much my kids hate me and are embarrassed by me.  But until that time, I think I'll enjoy their sweet innocence as long as they'll let me.  I don't know if my house will ever be clean and organized, but something tells me that's not what matters.  And just think, I only have 281 days to wait to get to experience it all over again.