Summer Rest

I love summer! Throughout the school year, my role as a mom is slowly becoming that of a taxi driver. Not full-on "soccer mom" yet, but it's getting there. One of the things I LOVE about summer is that I get to take off the cabby hat more often, and just hang out at home with my kids. Schedules and routines change, shift gears, for a few months. I love the feeling of a quiet house in the morning with three sleeping cherubs in their beds.

One of the challenges is to form new routines - summer routines - that help life not careen out of control, but maintain the beauty of days on end with no set schedule. So far I have two ideas. One is to be consistent with chores. Each day, we all need to have some assigned task to help the household flow and function. My current idea is to write them out each morning, and the kids just need to have theirs done by lunch time. We'll see how that goes. Another idea is to be consistent with dinner. This one is harder for me because My Farmer is home so rarely. It becomes so easy to just make Mac and cheese for the kids and call it good. I think it will bless our family, and add to a sense of rest, if they know they can count on sitting down to dinner whether Daddy's home or not. You can check back with me in a few weeks and see how this is going!

What about you? How will you enjoy the freedoms of summer while maintaining some structure for your family? How will you create space for creativity, togetherness, laughter and quiet? Whatever you do, do it intentionally, and don't let September catch you by surprise. Decide what you want to do and do it. Summer is yours for the taking. . . now if the sun would just come out!

p.s. I'm off to take the kids and my nephew to VBS, and then Basketball camp. Taxi!!