The only summer of your life...

I wrote this post last Wednesday. It has taken me all week to post it. The weather has been nice so we have been busy outside - and also just plain busy. Also, I was looking for pictures to go with it - and that proved difficult. More on that later. These pictures were from the phone last summer around this time.

Today the weather finally started acting like spring again so this morning Jackie, Eve and I went to the park. We were excited when my good friend Jenny, Logan ( Jackie's honey) Chelsa, ( Evie's age) Jensen ( the best baby ever) and another friend Alyssa could come too. We had the park pretty much to ourselves so it was great.

At one point, Jenny and I were pushing all of the kids on the swings. After awhile, the other kids got tired of swinging and went off to do other things. Alyssa kept on swinging. She was giggling and laughing and was the perfect picture of a kid enjoying a park on a bright sunny day. It made me nostalgic for my childhood. I said, "Alyssa, you just love swinging don't you." "Yes" she said, "I love to swing because it just makes me feel little. Like a little kid again".

She was feeling nostalgic too. Remembering those carefree summer days when she was three.

Later on, as we were playing at the big kid twirly slide, watching Jackie, Logan and Alyssa go up and down so fast, Jenny started talking about how she remembers coming to the park with Chloe, Alice and Jackie and Logan when Jackie and Logan were toddlers like Evie and Chelsa. She said, "I just can't believe you guys are starting kindergarten next year", and bless her heart, she started to tear up. Nostalgia can creep up on you.

It made me start thinking if we really appreciate the moments that we have when we have them. Do we laugh as hard or smile as much or thank the Lord for all the blessing we have right now? I think that sometimes I do but sometimes I don't. In a summer acting class that I took in university exactly 10 years ago, the teacher emphasized "living in the moment" or " being fully present in the here and now" so you could react honestly. Sometimes I can do this, but other times I have to say I am pretty future focused. "What will I do tomorrow?" instead of "What do I have today?".

Is there a way to avoid nostalgia? If we truly live each moment to it's fullest, will we not tear up thinking of the past? My mom tells a story of when she was a girl, riding her horse bare back across the prairie and thinking, "I am having a happy childhood" . Can I do that with my kids? Help them value and recognize the great moments they have, because I know that childhood goes so fast.

I said to them a couple of weeks ago, " I am so excited for this summer! It will be so special. Alice, do you know that this is the only summer OF YOUR LIFE when you will be SEVEN. Jackie, you WILL NEVER AGAIN be FOUR in the summer time. This is it. This is Evie's summer to be TWO!" Alice rolled her eyes, like is was a bad joke, but Jackie got it I think. Well, at least, like me she started getting excited. Excited about learning to swim better, excited about going on the motor boat. Excited about riding a bigger bike. So often in childhood we measure how old we are based on what we can do. What rides we are now tall enough for. It gets less exciting as you get older. After all, it is the only summer OF MY LIFE when I will be 33. But thinking that doesn't give me that urgent feeling I get when I think of my kids summer. Kid's time is so much more precious because it is so fleeting. Also, our childhood shapes who we become, in a way that a summer in your 30s doesn't. Somehow that girl who loved racing her pony across the prairie became my mother who taught me to water ski when I was seven. Now as I look at pictures of my childhood, I realize that my parents were the age then that I am now, and they probably felt the same way I do.

One thing is clear, these years while my kids are young are the glory years. The years when a family vacation is the best thing going. When running through the sprinkler in the backyard makes your day and a Popsicle on the front step is just so sweet. So I'll try to drink up every wonderful minute. And I'll try to remember, as I am washing sticky Popsicle fingerprints off the walls, that some summer day in the future I'll remember this time I get teary eyed. I don't think you can avoid nostalgia. After all, nostalgia isn't something you would want to avoid. But hopefully we can all live to avoid regret.

Me, my little brother Sam, and my older sister Erin on a summer day at My Grandma Hudson's. I think the three of us are about the ages my kids are now - Maybe a little older, since I look about 6, which would make Erin 8, and Sam 4.