It was summertime…nearly the end of summertime…and quite frankly, my kids had been driving me crazy. I know, that’s pretty common, but really not for me. I typically really enjoy them home and do not even want to think about it being time for them to go back to school. And really, it wasn’t that I wanted them to go back to school at the time, but my goodness, I was about to pull my freaking hair out!
All summer long it’s like a truck stop here at night…kids roaming around, flushing toilets, getting snacks, opening loud chip bags, watching annoying shows at ungodly volumes.
And then my mornings, well they start early with the little kids. They’re usually so hungry when they wake up it’s like I need to stop what I’m doing right then to get them food, yet they decline each and every option I can come up with. Finally, I get to the point that when they ask, “Can I have chicken nuggets?” I say, “Yes!”
Or, “Can I have a cookie?”
“Of course you can!”
“Can I have chips and cheese?”
“Why not?”
And my day just goes on and on from there.
Ok, there’s my rant.
Here’s my confession:
By the end of the summer, I’m not usually the most pleasant to be around. I get…crabby. Cranky. Short. Impatient. Huffy. Difficult.
Especially this one week in particular. It was late July when I woke early in the morning with a raging fever and I ached all over. An hour later, we noticed our air conditioning wasn’t cooling. A few hours after that, I learned it would be 2 1/2 days before a technician could even come take a look. A couple of hours after that I was diagnosed with strep throat.
In desperation, I had asked the kids for help. Please babysit, please pick up around the house, please do your chores, please keep the doors closed because it’s so stinking hot.
When I would emerge from my stuffy bedroom, I found hungry kids, a messy house, and an open bedroom door letting in all the hot air and letting out what little bit of cool air I thought we had left. Frankly, I was a mess.
But…
That night I laid awake…wait, let me paint a better picture. That night, five out of seven people were sprawled out across the second-floor game room. Since the upstairs AC still worked, we brought twin mattresses from kids’ beds up there for us all to sleep. So there we were, wall to wall, on lumpy spring-filled kid mattresses, sheets barely draped over us so we could stay cool, me on the upstairs sofa, propped up because my throat was killing me and I seriously could barely breath. The other four people up there with me were asleep, breathing loudly and snoring.
So there I was that night as I laid awake.
Aside from me not breathing and the loud snoring of the other people, I was kept awake because of the ruckus coming from downstairs. It was our 16 year old son and 13 year old daughter having the time of their lives cackling and laughing. They were watching something on a computer, I could tell that much, then talking, and visiting, and just cracking up. Turns out, they were watching a Disney show they watched together as little kids. Honestly, I can’t think of the last time I heard sober people laugh so much and have such a good time.
As I laid awake, barely breathing, I thought, this is what summertime is all about. Who cares the house is dirty or the air is out or the mom is a hot mess. These two kids bonding and laughing and having a good old time in the middle of the night is like summertime gold!
These are the nights and the jokes and the time spent that will matter so much in two years when that 16 year old boy is off to college. This is the bond that will hold them together when spouses and kids and jobs enter the picture.
As I listened, I couldn’t even wish I were going to sleep. I thought, this is a parenting jackpot. This is like a dream come true.
This…this ridiculous cackling…these outbursts of laughter…these late night memories….this is the stuff summertime is made of.
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