It happens every year. Summer starts out just swell: beach days, freedom, kids sleeping in until 6:05 am. We make bucket lists about all the awesome things we will do before the season ends. We savour dripping freezies in the languid summer afternoons, we jump off the dock, we go on a family vacation.

Then we realize that it’s only the middle of July. And there’s still basically seven weeks of summer “holidays” to fill and really, I gave it my best, but we are all officially DONE. Wake me up on September 7th when the kids go back to school for 15 minutes.

Being a working mom during the summer isn’t the easiest thing I’ve done. It’s a lot of juggling and scheduling and also it’s really expensive to keep three kids busy for two months. I look back at our photos and it looks like lots of fun, but the fact of the matter is that for many of the moments, I wasn’t fully present as I was on my phone for work, or thinking about work that I had to do once we were done having fun (which kind of puts a damper on said fun, for the record.) I am thankful for my job, it’s just by nature much easier to manage when kids are in school.

The kids have had enough too and have reached the point where they are craving some routine again. Also we reached our quota for togetherness about two weeks ago and the fighting has exponentially increased. I find it helps when I just jump in and yell, “YOU GUYS! STOP FIGHTING! LEARN TO DEAL WITH YOUR ISSUES WITHOUT YELLING!” Real effective.

I always welcome the fall with wide open arms. No other season wakes me up, in both body and soul, like autumn. But I promise not to wish these closing days of summer away, though. I will keep wedging my rear into my bathing suit and going for a swim when the kids beg me to since I know they won’t always. I will eat with a thankful heart from the stunning Okanagan bounty all around us: peaches, apples, veggies from the garden and be amazed at the harvest. And I will sit on the deck after the children having finally surrendered to sleep at 10:30 pm and breathe a sigh of gratitude for this crazy, exhausting summer of a life.