Summer

I love the workdays leading up to a holiday. My office is a ghost town. Those of my coworkers that are here are in fantastic moods, planning for the upcoming long weekend, taking long lunches, lingering a little bit longer in the halls to visit and laugh. I don’t know why I like it so much. Maybe it reminds me of the last day of school before Christmas break, or a Thursday during finals week in college. The stress of everyday life has dissipated a little bit, and as colleagues or classmates or whatever you are, you’re all sort of banded together in your feelings of relief and anticipation. A collective “Phew!” if you will.

These past few weeks have been busy. To say the least. I suppose nothing even out of the ordinary has been taking up our time, it’s really been just the regular hustle and bustle of summer. Softball games, baby showers, parades, birthdays, barbeques, graduation parties. Good stuff really. Just busy.

Gus is enjoying the heck out of his first summer outside the belly. We spend as much time outside as possible, and even when he’s at “daycare” he’s having the full summer experience. Last week he played with the kids outside at Annie’s in the slip ‘n’ slide and sprinkler. Yesterday he had a blast splashing and kicking at the neighborhood kiddies’ pool with his grandma. (And wouldn’t you know, his other grandma showed up as well with a bunch of his aunts and uncles. And then so did Annie with her two kids… such a blessing living in a part of the city where it feels so much like a small town!) Monday he went to the park and had a little picnic with his future buddy Lincoln.

We go for long walks before his morning nap every day that I have off work. On Mondays and Fridays it’s just the two of us, but on weekends Daddy gets to come along. Gus is so fun, he watches intently when busses or garbage trucks go by, charms the elderly gentlemen who are regulars at the local McDonalds where I stop for iced coffee, kicks his chunky legs and grabs his little toes as we zip around the neighborhood and try to keep his big doggy sister Bella under control. On those walks, motherhood feels just exactly like how I always imagined it.

People spend so much time talking about the horrors of parenthood, they talk about how difficult it is, how you’re a sleep-deprived zombie for much of the first year, how a simple trip to Target and the grocery store can take so much planning and orchestrating. They talk about being frustrated with your body even ten months after giving birth. They say teething SUCKS, and mealtime involves you shoveling food into your mouth as quickly as possible, likely while standing at the kitchen counter. And yeah, that stuff is all SO TRUE. Somedays you find yourself saying to yourself, "Seriously? This is my life?" But gosh, all that stuff you dreamt about when you were big and pregnant, you know… rocking your baby to sleep in a moonlit nursery, reading a storybook together and pausing for the little guy to turn the pages with his fat little sausage fingers, eliciting squeals of pure joy as you push him on the swing at the park, and yeah… going for long walks together on beautiful, peaceful Minnesota summer mornings. All of that stuff is real too. And it’s so darn wonderful.

So yes, we’re enjoying our summer around here. We’re heading off to the cabin tomorrow for the 4th, and I’m excited for life to slow down a bit once we’re up there. Of course getting there, the packing, the shopping, the organizing, the laundry, that’s all definitely exhausting and stressful. But once we get there….

Yes, I can’t wait to get there and just… be. I’m so excited.