The Mom's Corner - Dog Days of Summer

Oh, the dog days of summer ARE upon us! I really have a love/hate relationship with summer, and as August approaches each year I cannot decide if my relationship is more of a love or a hate.

In March and April we start making a list of all the things we want to do over the summer – the closets we are going to clean, the mini-trips we are going to take, the camps we are going to attend, the major projects around the house that just do not seem to get accomplished during the school year…There is so much I want to do! My summer list is always a mile long, and I become determined to check off each and every one of the things on it.

We begin each summer not just with oodles of gusto, but also with joy as we tackle each of the things on the long, long list. Yet, as August approaches our excitement fades and the joy we found at the beginning of summer sometimes seems to be replaced with annoyance, a feeling of duty and dread. Instead of cherishing the long summer days, we begin counting down how many are left until the start of school. Perhaps it is the relentless heat that wears on me, perhaps it is one too many times of hearing the comment “I’m bored” and the question, “When are we going to get there?”, or perhaps it is simply just me, but nonetheless, my amusement with summer fades - in a bad way.

For the last two days we have been in the van with all four kids and a dog. We have been in ten different states and crossed two time zones. And, as I write I now, I am still hundreds of miles from my beloved Texas.

This trip is one of the biggest things on our checklist for the summer and assuredly something that we had been planning for months. Thus, the anticipation that led up to it for both the kids and myself was great, but as we were pulling out of our driveway in the wee hours of the morning, I wanted nothing more than to pull the van back in the garage and return to the comfort of my own bed. And, I could not help but to think as I grumpily buckled in the four sleeping kids in the car that I would be happier if I was still in bed and did not have to go on the stinkin’ trip. Perhaps this climax to our summer was just too much for me! Is this really what people call a “vacation?” I was looking for peace, rest, and relaxation…

Oh, and there have been some moments when I wanted to loose my cool and turn the car around…like when we were half-way to Houston and our oldest son said, “I am so sorry, but I left my shoes at home!” (That my husband and I asked him at least four separate times to put on!) Are you kidding me? Or, when I ask the three boys to go into the restroom to change clothes and one comes out with his shirt on backwards, one wearing his much younger brother’s shirt and the third wearing his father’s underwear…and seeing NOTHING wrong with any of these situations! Again, are you kidding me? Or, what about when the baby decided to stay awake for over twelve hours on the first leg of the trip? Are you kidding me?

But, somewhere on the flip side of the mighty Mississippi in the stillness of a rest stop in Tennessee, I looked at the splendid of the Smoky Mountains in the distance and the kids playing hide-in-seek in the trees that I was reminded not just of my blessings, but I found the peace, rest, and relaxation I was seeking on the summer vacation I was taking. It was then that this trip became not something on my checklist, but something that filled me with joy that the dog days of summer sometimes steal from you.

Did I mention that I love August?

And, in the last, few, precious days before the start of school, may you find joy and check off your list relishing in the sweetness that only the dog days of summer could bring.