As the golden light of an August afternoon sun filters in through my window, I can’t help but feel it’s all slipping away. Another summer with my children is almost over. We only get eighteen with them, I’m repeatedly and aggressively told by my social media algorithms.
Eighteen summers.
It’s a stark reminder. And so I pause as I unload the dishwasher yet again, swallowing my rage and staring wistfully off into the middle distance. Reminding myself that I’ll miss this eventually. That someday there won’t be 167 half full cups littering every room in the house. That years from now, I’ll look back through the hazy, nostalgic-filled, choking mist of sunscreen and bug spray and realize what a blessing it was to constantly clean the pee off the toilet seat and army crawl my way under beds looking for yet another missing library book.
But it’s not over yet. So, for now, I will hold on tightly to that unique summer feeling of warm, sun-kissed skin against a cool, wet bathing suit. Of pools and lakes and long stretches of ocean. Of giggles and splashes and squeals that turn into screams because one of my kids is attempting what looks like incompetent manslaughter. Of the beautiful, neverending chorus of “Mom, I’m cold!” and “Mom, I have to pee again!” and “Hey mom, watch this!” over and over and over again, even though all they’re doing is holding their nose and dipping their faces chin deep into the water.
There will come a day when I yell for the last time “Where the hell did all this sand come from? We got back from vacation a week ago!” I just hope I’m present enough to remember it.
Because one day there will be no one to feed 11 times a day. No light switches covered in Doritos dust. No house full of blanket forts and entire Lego cities and a baker’s dozen of abandoned board games and what looks like a Barbie and Monster High Doll civil war in which no one was the winner. A messy house full of beautiful memories that I am ready to burn down because it will be easier than trying to clean all this crap up.
Someday I will miss meticulously planning a picnic that is abandoned early because there are apparently bugs outside. And the barbecue we tried to have but my kids don’t eat hotdogs or hamburgers or potato salad or corn or watermelon and why can’t we make chicken nuggets on the grill and can we eat inside because there are bugs outside? And the beautiful hike that ended in tears (mine) because I cannot explain again why there are bugs outside.
How many more days are left where both my children accuse me of not listening because they are talking to me at the same time? How many more eyerolls and puking noises will I get to enjoy as their response to the dinner I just spent over an hour making? How many more times will they beg me to watch them play Minecraft?
Five thousand? A million? That’s it.
What I would give to have them call me ‘bruh” forever. To freeze this remarkable age where they wake me up at 6 am by jumping on my most sensitive bits asking if they can play Nintendo, and yet also wake me up at midnight to tell me all about their nightmare that somehow divulges into an hour long monologue about why Roblox is, like, really awesome.
So these last few weeks, I am going to revel in the long lazy mornings watching cartoons, and the long lazy afternoons watching movies, and the long lazy evenings of them watching whatever it is they watch on their tablets that I really hope is child appropriate, because it’s been an unrelenting heat wave since mid-July. At this moment, right now, I am wholeheartedly embracing the simple joy of Googling the symptoms of rickets because I honestly can’t remember the last time I took them outside.
I know it’s coming. As sure as the seasons change, that moment will come when I’m sitting in my clean, quiet home, with a full bank account and a well-stocked fridge with a gallon of milk that isn’t missing its lid, and I will long for the days when I walked around the house in a blind rage because every surface was covered with those little plastic thingies from juice box straws. That moment when I can leave my house without hollering at someone to get their damned shoes on, we’re already running late.
And when that moment comes, I suppose I’ll have to take solace in the fact that during our 35th summer together, I will get to watch, giant margarita in hand, as my beautiful children scream at their own children. And I will laugh and laugh as I skip from room to room, throwing the plastic straw thingies I’ve hoarded in my pockets like so much confetti.
Chick Writes Stuff 