SUMMER SCENES

I sat down to write a serious post, but with the heat of the day, my brain feels mushy and like it might be frying slowly from the inside.  I am defaulting to a few scenes from this week.

We are doing swim lessons every day this week, which the girls have informed me is the best part of each day this week.  They do seem to really be getting it this year, which is exciting!  And, I love when they wear goggles.



Now, while we are at swim lessons with the big girls, it means that littles must stay somewhat entertained.  Thankfully, the house where we take lessons also has horses, which has been a major win for the twins.



However, other moments tend to go from this.



To this.

To this very quickly.  She was unhappy when I pulled her down.  Though you may have deduced that from this picture.

There are playdates with friends.

And beautiful flowers in our neighborhood.  I think hydrangea is one of my favorite colors.  There are so many subtle variants even on one bush, and the colors are so rich.  I love them.

Sometimes I still bake cookies, though these are certainly the easy ones compared to sugar cookies.

And we are all so glad when Daddy comes home.

Today we got haircuts for the girls who hadn't had them in about a year.  (gritted teeth emoji!)

And we all looked strangely at the Barbie head that someone brought in with them to play with.  (pictured in the background of Bella's picture.)  None of my kiddos could quite figure it out.

This is my first full actual week of doing summer at home, and I had a mini meltdown last night when I realized that many weeks of this stretch in front of me.  My children are at rather exhausting stages, and I fought battles on many fronts yesterday that left me feeling defeated and a bit depressed.  I wondered if I would hate the rest of the summer days.  I felt guilty for not loving all this time with my precious children.  I felt guilty for wishing they were all older so we could do more fun stuff without quite so much work.

And while traces of all those feelings remain, today I had a firmer grip on truth.  John helped me try to think through some plans last night to keep hold of sanity.  I'm trying to embrace the reality of where we are, which involves certain limitations that cannot be changed this year.  That's okay.  We will have an okay summer this year, and I am okay with that.  It won't be the sun drenched summer of our dreams where we frolic and play and learn and aren't exhausted.  That's okay.  I will get sweet time with my sweet children who I really do adore, and I will also liberally hire sitters so that I will keep adoring my children as summer goes on.

I'm also asking God to help me adjust expectations and do the things he wants for our family, which may look different than things I think I want.  I need a little settling down and settling in when my heart wants to go and do and keep going.  I always wanted to have children close together, and this slow down is the flip side of that - there are limitations with four children within four years of each other this young.  I wouldn't have seen those, but God knew I needed them - so even though I don't always like it, I'm learning gratitude in the midst of it.