lessons

School's only been out for a little over a week, yet it feels like we plunged fully into summer, like being pushed into the deep end of the pool without a chance to take a breath and brace yourself. I love this time of year, when the girls are unrestricted by any schedule (except mine) and they get to stay up later and spend more leisure time with the family and friends they love. The summer also poses some challenges, as I still have to work and the lure of spending the carefree days with them is sometimes overwhelming. Still, they have a pretty diverse schedule, spending time with their cousins at my sister's house and with friends at some day camps here and there.

But before we are knee deep in summer pleasures I wanted to take a moment to record the lessons that this school year brought us. Not so much the academic lessons, but the life ones. Because this year we changed schools and then changed back mid-year. And at the time it was difficult to see the lesson in that, other than that parents sometimes make mistakes and we need to be big enough to admit them. But as the school year came to a close, Sydney shared with me that she feels she grew spiritually this year because of that experience. She says she learned that she doesn't need to fit in with a particular group of friends just because it seems "the thing to do" and that she is more confident in declining to go along with the group and branching out on her own than she was before. Seems like a pretty timely lesson, with middle school just around the corner.

And so we forge ahead into summer. I do have a few academic goals in mind, such as teaching Tess her multiplication tables, and our table is stacked with library books that we are reading like crazy. But mostly I just want to enjoy this time, mindful of the fact that in a few more years this kind of summer, where I can orchestrate their activities and they are happy enough just to spend a day at home with us, will only exist in my memory.