Oh, Summer!

Summer's here, when the kids are enjoying leisurely mornings, offsetting the rest of the day so they find themselves eating breakfast at 11:00 and lunch at 3:00, everyone hanging with at least one friend if not two or three so that my house becomes a whirlwind of laughter, noise and activity, the boys rough housing, shooting hoops for hours then busting through the door with that lovely outdoorsey scent only a sweaty teenage boy can vent. They eat everything in sight, leaving a trail of mess behind them. The girls constantly giggle, listen to ipods and love trying new nail designs with neon colored nail polish. They all stay up late with no thought of waking to an obnoxious alarm clock the next day, they hang at the mall and everyone wants to go in ten different directions at the same time.

What is that? I'm OK with it really. It's Summer right? Kinda forget as an adult what it was like as a young person. Do you remember Summer as a young person?... Oh, to have that time of life back again... hanging with neighbor friends, riding bikes for hours, going to the park playing frisbee and looking for cute boys, walking to Dairy Queen and enjoying icecream without worry of belly bulge, blasting the music out my bedroom window as we sunbathed on the roof or swam in my back yard pool all day... I even remember thinking to myself one Summer day as I splashed water on my sunkissed face while lounging on a raft in the pool and watching my dad rush off to work ... "I should really enjoy these days... when else in life will I have a chance to be so care free... it's sure to become more complicated when I get older and have a family and responsibilities." I was rather wise for my age, giving myself permission to be carefree, understanding summer is a unique time for a young person, to be embraced as a once in a lifetime opportunity to chill and enjoy before real life comes crashing in full force.

Today as I reminisce, I smile as I listen to the laughter, watch the horseplay and smell the effects of playing hard. When I start to feel stressed or frazzled due to their lack of structure I will remember it's ok to allow for some of that as long as they have some semblance of productivity in there somewhere. Which they do.... thank God. But for the majority of the summer I want them to be carefree kids, creating lasting, lifetime memories to tuck away as part of their journey before life launches them into the real world, when such long stretches of leisure are bound to slip away in exchange for new seasons of maturity and responsibility. Watching them enjoy their season of "young, wild, and free"reminds me to keep embracing my new seasons too, tucking away the unique blessings that come with each one, not rushing ahead trying to live in the next, but relishing the here and now. It's good to know that even though seasons may change, each one is uniquely loaded with surprises, goodness and this amazing thing called life.