Ready (repost)

**** I was thinking about this post and decided to go re-read it. Here I am a year later feeling exactly the same way. i thought it was hand foot and mouth that had "slowed" us down last year, and yet here we are all healthy and still we've spent the last week just chilling at home, fighting the urge to fill up the last few days of summer. This summer I still scroll through my instagrams and think, Yup! my kids got another killer summer, lucky dogs. We're tired and happy to just look back at all the sun filled fun. Levi regularly turns to me just as he's about to fall asleep and says, " 'Member we went in da boat! and it bounced and bounced and bounced!!!!!"

Yes Levi, it was fun wasn't it.  (too bad your mom didn't blog any of it:) *******

Oh ya!  read this awesome back to school post too!



"Mom, I need you!"  Mckye says in that perfect frequency my kids learn before they can say a two syllable word. 

The frequency that makes your brain vibrate. 
You know the one I'm talking about. Most people call it "whining" but it's way too penetrating for such a weak description.

I've talked to a few other moms who summer is starting to wear on

Last week, I was frantically reviewing our summer buckets list, trying to cram in every last bit of summertime fun we could muster.

This week, I'm dreaming of routine. 
Craving some structure.  
Welcoming the consistancy that comes with the falling leaves. 








Most of all I want bedtime back. 
My kids haven't slept all summer. They stay up incredible late and though we've had a few sleep-in mornings, usually at least one decides to be on wake-mom-up-early-duty. 



At first it was fun, dozing off around a bonfire, jumping on the tramp under the stars. 







Oh, but it is taking it's toll. 

We can't drive anywhere past 3pm or the kids inevitably zonk. It's amazing how even a few minutes, sleeping with their heads hanging from their carseat restraits, can rejuvenate them so completely. Their re-found energy in those lovely after dinner hours, (well if you can call our random snacking and smoothies "dinner") are especially hard when your utterly exhausted from hauling them around in the sun all day.

Our kids rooms are way too hot, and a few merciful nights of letting the kids crash on our floor with a fan blowing on them, has turned into quite the habit. 

Combine that with a case of hand foot and mouth, last night I'm pretty sure I feel asleep no less than 50 times in atleast half a dozen locations, half of those being on the floor. I'd exhaustedly drift off laying next to one child only to be aroused by the cries of another. 











I'm ready for some winter hibernation! 
Some evening darkness to lull the kids under their covers.
"Is not bed time, look, the sun is still awake!" McKye informs us, rattling the blinds out of the way to prove his point. Can't convince a 3 year old that rule doesn't apply for three months of the year.

The result? an added measure of crankiness in our household. 

Maybe this hand foot mouth quaruntine is a blessing in disguise. 
At first I was annoyed that I'd miss any amount of summertime galavanting. 
But maybe our pace was a little unsustainable. 
Maybe I needed a bit more transition back into "home life". 

I've gotten pretty good at parenting from my camp chair, watching them splash at the lake or run through the spray park, having them riffle through the swim bag for random snacks when they get hungry.







But there is just something about their little voices bouncing back off the drywall that amplifies annoyance in my mommy-mind. 

Outside mothering welcomes the loud, the active, the wild, in a way that our suburban homes resist-- like an elderly relative just wanting the little ones to calm down, sit down and for heaven's sake be quiet!

I have loved this summer though. My boys have soaked in the sun, and browned despite the constant smearing of sunscreen. 

I catch myself just scrolling through my instagrams, smiling and think, "What a summer! What a childhood!" 

We've played HARD. With a level of independence my little family has never felt before (sans non-walkin and/or nursing babies of summers past) and I have truly reveled in it.

"Mom, I need you!" my growing  boy calls again. 

And I believe him.

He needed the freedom of sunshine and laxness of schedule and his mom to sit and chat with friends while he ran on the playground navigating his own new little friendships.
He needed to learn the thrill of spontaneity, the fun that comes in some flexibility.

But now he needs me to get back into the rhythm of routine, and feel the comfort of life's predictability, the calmness of the expected and the ordinary.

He needs bedtime.
And so do I.