This summer Brad has been off just about every Friday by three. We have spent so much time together, and loved it all. I am not ready for my children to loose their summer glow. Seeing their little tan bodies run around at the pool, watching them swim like fish while laying out holding Sweetness' hand is heaven. We have packing the cooler down to a science. Sandwiches eaten poolside are the best. But now it's back to packing school lunches. Soon it will be suppers eaten in the car on the way to football games.
Why do I resist change so much? Every time something in my life changes I think I'll never be as happy as I was before. Thankfully I've been wrong every time. We move, and I feel like we'll never make friends. We end up making wonderful friends, I get comfortable and dread the next change. My birthday rolls round and I think the best year of my life is ending, yet the next one always tops the previous.
My thirty-third birthday is this week. I think twenty seven was my worst birthday, I had a baby and was fighting for a new sense of self. My thirty first birthday was the best one I've ever had. I was alive, out of the hospital, and could hold my husband and children every day and had never appreciated it more. Who knows what my thirty third year will bring? A new state, new schools for the kids, hopefully new friends.
Lots of changes this week, and I'm trying to look forward to all of it. Turner will have an awesome teacher and the best first grade experience. I will love being thirty-three, even more than I loved my entire life at thirty-two. I won't say good bye to my favorite smell of Coppertone mixed with chlorine. We will still go swim on the weekends, but weekends fill up fast during the school year.
I think of the sentiment of "keep Christmas in your heart all year long" and smile. I think I'll keep summer in my heart all year long. I'll remember laying in the hot sun and feeling Tate's pool cooled body flop down on top of me. I will remember the melty cheese on my sandwiches tasting better than it ever does at home. I'll remember the cute white line Turner gets across his nose every summer. And I will think of my Sweetness throwing our kids impossibly high, hearing them squeal as they splash into the pool and beg to be thrown again. When fall and winter are here I may just smear the kids with a little Coppertone so I can smell the next summer and know it's on it's way.
