Summer's End Approaches

When the kids were little, their favorite babysitter was Aunt Bonnie. At Bonnie's there were wonderful cousins to play with, and wonderful dolls, and a play structure in the back yard, and yummy snacks, and so much more.

Invariably, when I returned to pick them up, Emily would take one look at me and burst into tears. "But Mom, we haven't started playing yet!"

I could never figure this out. It could be half an hour or four hours, and she would always be in tears and would always insist that they were just ready to start playing but hadn't started yet. And she would beg to stay longer, and I would have to say no.

That's how I feel this summer.

Here I have about six precious weeks with all of my kids at home, and I keep thinking, one of these days I'll have time to really enjoy them. But until then it's all rush rush rush, boys off to the warehouse, huge meals to cook, birthdays to celebrate, Matt hunting in the fridge for leftovers before he leaves for work, writing deadlines, water the flowers before they die, feed and water the hens before they do the same, endless dishes and pitchers of iced tea, company coming and going, out to the coast for our anniversary, mountains of laundry, getting ready for a garage sale, having the garage sale and cleaning up afterwards, running Steven's supper down to the warehouse, speaking engagements in town, three kids teaching VBS and one attending, freezing blueberries, rush rush rush and hurry hurry and work like crazy.

But surely one of these times I can just ENJOY my kids!

This evening, suddenly, it was just Paul and me and Jenny here, and Paul's mom for a while. I was seized with a sadness and near-panic. Are we almost back to this, nearly everyone gone, the quietness, the emptiness, the ticking off each one in my head--ok, he's there, she's over there, the younger boys are at Dan's--with a quick prayer for each and the inevitable sense of distance and longing?

And I thought, so soon, they're going to be GONE and I HAVEN'T STARTED PLAYING YET!!

Sigh.

Postscript: this evening I asked Emily about these memories of her, and she said, "Well, we always had to decide which dolls we would play with, and give them all names, and decide which clothes they would wear, and who of us would be the mom and the dad, and then when we finally had all that decided and were about ready to start playing, then you would come back!"

Quote of the Day:
"Wow, Mom, maybe you should get excommunicated!"
--Emily, after she asked Paul what it means to get excommunicated and he said, among other things, that you could still attend church and all, but you wouldn't have any responsibilities.