In exchange for that single moment of elation after I put the dinner dishes away and don’t have to immediately yank the lunch fixings out of the fridge to assemble school meals for the next day, comes the starkness of ten weeks with all three girls at home all day, every day. Yes, there are magical moments at the beach, or when we read stories together at bedtime, but there is also a whole lot of FIGHTING and beating each other up and screaming and did I mention the FIGHTING?!

Oh, the fighting.

Summer holidays, you are a complicated mistress. High-maintenance, yet seductively beautiful at times.

Being home with the kids over summer “break” tosses me back into vivid memories of those days when they were all so little and crazy and they still crapped their pants and I hadn’t slept in six years. Good times. The guilt of not enjoying every moment sweeps over me and I fight thoughts like, “We could all be having a lot more fun if they weren’t acting like such TURDS.”

This is summer, man.

Add to the mix an exceptionally busy farmer husband and my unpredictable real estate schedule and the days are a tad harried.

This life: it’s great, it’s hard, it’s exhausting, and it’s ours.

I am thankful.

(But we REALLY would be having a lot more fun if the kids weren’t acting like such TURDS.)