Real Summer

I am calling this our last real week of summer. Really we have a bit more time than that, but with August starting this week I will officially let my brain think all things school. But not until then. I swear this summer went by faster than all the rest. And my only worry with that is: will they continue to do so? 

I have had the best summer... and I have had some great summers before. I was married in the summer. I have had two babies in the summer. But there has been something extra special about this summer. This might sound weird, but it has felt like a summer with three kids should feel. Its what I pictured when I dreamed of being a Momma years ago. Memories have been made in the busy, but I would like to think more memories have been made in the slow. 

After this summer I feel like I know my three better. I know when their bodies naturally wake up (Aug early-Em and B late). I know Auggie is a breakfast guy and Bennett isn't at all. I know how their imaginations work, what they dream of, how they like to be held, what frustrates them, what comforts them. I can tell within the first early hour if it is going to be a good day or not. I know they have bad days just like me, and I kind of know how to fix those moments. Kind of. I know what makes them laugh, what easy gestures make their day. And what has become very real to me this summer is that I don't have it all together, but I do love (beyond love) being their Mom.

When I looked back through this week's pictures the word real kept coming to mind. The pictures this week captured our real summer. No matching outfits, no big events, no where to go. If you could zoom in you would see dirty feet and knees that I just scrub with a wipe at night. Because why take a bath if you are just going to go right back outside when you wake up the next morning. I have learned that if I trim their fingernails, their little hands appear more clean and that spray detangler is my best friend when it comes to Emery Kayt and her forever falling out ponytail. This has also been the summer of french braids (finally) and lost shoes. By now we all just go barefoot. Its much easier. Its also easier to let Auggie wear the same clothes everyday and for Bennett to be a little too attached to his grimy pink babydoll and two blue pacies. (We will have our work cut out for us in a few weeks).

This summer I have picked my battles. While I make lunch, I let them take every cover and pillow off my bed; they pretend the pile is the pool and my bed is the diving board. Some days most days its one step forward and two steps back. I have learned that as long as my kitchen is clean, I can easily shut the doors to all the other rooms and still be happy. Some days are the best days and some days its survival mode and I am watching the clock until Daddy gets home. But I need both days. 

 Somedays we are outside from sun up to sun down. I should have bought stock in bug spray and sunscreen. We go on walks; the big kids ride bikes and I inevitably push both bikes back home. Their imaginations run all day. They have a restaurant named "Sandy Cakes", they are super heroes saving the day, they are teacher and student, mom and dad. Bennett feeds the cat, Auggie has to check his crops and do his imaginary chores and Emery just needs to swing. We get out every outside toy we own and then start in on the inside toys. By evening we look like crazy people and sometimes by evening we are crazy people. And sometimes we watch too much television. Auggie is full of weird facts thanks to Blippi and Emery can now sing the theme song to Captain Underpants. Old me would have felt a little guilty about this but the right now me thinks sometimes ya just need a little t.v. time.

I learned this summer that having a six and a four means that little ears are always listening and sometimes when I think they are too little to understand something big, they surprise me. The way they look at life is the way I need to, and on days I am struggling I really do believe God sends them the perfect outlook, the perfect remark, the perfect way of understanding something and he uses them to teach me. This summer I learned that if I look for Him in the piles of laundry, in the stack of dirty dishes, in the never-ending needs, in the teary-eyed after-tantrum faces, I can easily find Him. He meets me right there where I need Him; I just have to look. 

This summer we spent days on days cutting leaves and dumping sand in the yard. (Anyone else have childhood memories of doing this?) I believe you haven't really lived until you have sat and cut leaves ha! Somedays my three play so good together. Everyone is included; they have sweet words of affirmation for each other all day long. You should have heard Auggie when Emery jumped off the diving board this past week. He was more excited and proud than she was. Somedays Bennett Lee is perfectly content being driven around in the Barbie Jeep and jumping on the couch.

Somedays Em senses I need help and is right there for me. She is Bennett's comfort and Auggie's entertainer. On those days when the three-little-kids stars align, its easy to pat myself on the back and go to bed with a smile on my face and words of thanks in my prayer. 

And somedays Auggie yells, as loud and as emotional as he can, "This is the WORST day of my life." And he yells it too many times to count. Somedays Bennett has so many tantrums out of frustration that we both end up crying. On the days when the stars are far from aligning, I still try to pat myself on the back, go to bed with a smile on my face and I really, really try to remember to say those words of thanks. It has been the summer of the one warning, the summer of grateful lists (to remind us that we are far from having the worst day), the summer of sign language and the summer of giving grace. To myself and to my little people. 

In summer we eat snacks, on snacks, on snacks and I declare the kitchen closed ten times a day. (Anybody else feel like if their kitchen is clean than they can conquer the world? Just me?). We stay up late, we sleep in and somedays I nap when they nap. Auggie is still the best cuddle kid. My other two are not.  Lately in those sweet, just woken up moments I have been trying to memorize Bennett's baby profile. The way the morning light hits the peach fuzz of his face. When Auggie asks me to carry him from my bed to the couch I try to remember what his four year old weight feels like (and it feels like Bennett's almost two weight). By noon I am still begging Emery to push her bed head hair out of her face and when I move it to see her pretty blue eyes, she moves it right back. Its been the summer of stained play clothes, wide open doors (all of them all the time), and a million dirty cups a day. I tell myself I will miss all of it. 

A real summer picture would be a picture of all the help I get. Of course the grandparents, they are such blessings to us. But beyond that. Sisters-in law, my Aunt, my cousin, my girlfriends, the neighbors. Doug and I get to go and do so many fun things, and I have never worried about my babies (well maybe worried about them behaving haha) but I have never worried about them being safe or being happy or being loved on. Summers give you that little bit of extra time to reconnect, to remember the value a person adds to your life, to get back to your people. And I got good people. 

Like I said, I am giving myself one more week of real summer before I start thinking like a teacher. One more week of no alarms, peanut butter and jelly for the third lunch in a row, Wal-mart pick up saving my sanity, Mommy can you push me one more time, summer. Hoping for a repeat of real summer this week. But maybe take it even slower. Soak it up. Enjoy it. 

Because it has been the best summer.