It is no secret that summer is my favourite season. I can't get enough of the sun or the water or the days that last well into evening, ending the day being cooled by thunder showers. Summer here is short and there is not a moment to be missed. Way back in December, as a chronic over thinker, I decided that 2012 would be the year of Present for me. So here I am smack in the middle of summer and trying to be present, at least in bits and pieces between the over thinking, each and every day.
Breakfast has been served outside, swimsuits have been worn all day, and the pool is hopped in and out of. Books are read on the swing attached to the big tree. No one gets tired of jumping on the trampoline. Meals are starting to be more from the garden than the food coop and we make homemade chocolate ice cream for desert. On Sundays after my run and church, we have been heading into the city with our bikes and riding the river valley trails, with a midpoint stop at a city spray park and playground. My husband runs through the jets with the oldest two, and I think again about how I love that man.
I hold my daughter on my knee while she consumes an entire popsicle, nowhere else I need to be, and I listen to her chatter and smell her hair while she licks the drips. I watch Canada women play the Americans with my soccer playing boy, him learning more about grown up soccer rules. We cheer and yell so loud, that we wake up the baby. I take her in the pool while everyone else starts supper, for some splash free swimming time and we kick around together for fifteen glorious minutes before we join everyone else.
Mattresses are hauled to the basement and we line them all up touching, so we can all sleep together. Not because it is too hot upstairs but because we are in the business of making memories, living a good story with our little ones, a tale they will tell their own children when they have grown. We lay with everyone until they fall asleep, which takes about two minutes after the day we have spent outside. I watch Haven nursing and her eyes drift close, her toddler hand relaxing with the freedom of sleep.
Aaron and I head upstairs and hold hands on the couch, drinking ice water and talking about the day. We sneak outside and swing in the hammock and look up at the stars. Later we will tiptoe downstairs to snuggle with our little ones. I'm heading to bed early so I'll be ready to be present tomorrow.
