Mourning the End of Summer

Summer.

The word itself conjures up images of long afternoons spent by the pool, ice cream for dinner, BBQs, ponytails, and flip-flops.

We love it. We relish it. We count down the days until it returns.

But one thing I have noticed these last few weeks is that we don’t see it through to the end.

Lately, social media is filled with mournful posts about summer ending, school starting, and days being counted down. Stay-at-home-moms are counting down to their kids going back to school. Teachers are counting down to kids coming back to school. Kids are counting down to the end of life as they know it.

Cali 080113
Friends, I have good news for you: summer doesn’t officially end until September 22. Did you hear that? September 22! We have almost two whole months left!

Raise the roof! Shout “amen”! Dance a little jig!

This has been my first real summer with my twins. At twenty-three months old, they are finally big enough to do some of the fun summer things I’ve dreamt of doing: swimming, the library, the zoo, the park, a vacation to the beach. And it’s been a blast! At the start of summer, we made a Summer Bucket List. (And by “we,” I mean “me,” because, come on – they’re toddlers.) I hung our list in the dining room as a reminder of what we (I) wanted to accomplish this summer. While we have had many firsts this summer, there are still a few things on our list we’ve yet to complete. (I’ll be sharing one of our firsts in a future blog post – traveling with toddlers!)

My mom was visiting last week, and she commented that we’d better get busy if we were going to finish our list “by the time summer’s over.”

That got me wondering: why DO we say goodbye to summer, long before summer is ready to leave us? Perhaps it’s because the aisles at Target are already filled with school supplies, or because Hallmark has already rolled out their Christmas ornaments. For many of us, the start of a new school year signifies the end of summer. Whatever the reason, I am determined to keep enjoying our summer until it’s officially time to say goodbye.

So, we’re going to add a few more things to our Summer Bucket List, eat a few more ice cream dinners, watch a few more sunsets, and wear our flip-flips for a little bit longer …

Cali
I'm Cali. I'm a wife, co-parent, and mom of twin boys who are soon-to-be 6, as well as brand new step-mom to 3 young adults who are 19, 16, and 14. I was born and raised in the Northland, and I can't imagine living anywhere else...unless you were to offer me a beach house, or a villa on the coast of Italy or France. I have been a public educator for 21 years, and I currently teach middle school, which I truly believe is the very best age in all the world. I enjoy reading, cooking, and traveling, and I believe ice cream is an acceptable meal any time of the day. I drink entirely too much diet coke, and my floors are rarely clean. I joined the mommy-club later in life after an 8 year struggle with infertility. I've decided being an "old mom" is a pretty great gig.

3 COMMENTS

  1. Thought about this yesterday as I nearly teared up seeing the Christmas trees at Hobby Lobby. Good idea to keep enjoying summer till it’s really over!

  2. Amen! Thanks for this article Cali! I went to bed last night pondering a summer gone by too quickly. This summer for our family was filled to the brim with adventures like adoption fundraisers, jury duty, and dental school graduations. Time consuming endeavors that kept me from making the usual bucket list that we have each summer. I continued to ponder what I could cram into the last two weeks. Thank you for reminding me that I have got 2 months. On the menu for dinner tonight… ICE CREAM!!!

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