An Ode to the "Summer Surprise"
When summer begins, it feels like my entire personality is defrosting. As a summer baby (August virgo season) and someone whose childhood memories are 95% made up from summer moments, I love the summer. I love the longer days with the later sunsets, the time on the beach playing in the sand, the feeling of going into the ocean and then taking a nap in the sunshine, the daily ice cream or popsicles melting all over your hands, and simply making memories. It is, in my opinion, what embodies the “90’s style parenting” that I referenced as my parenting anchor. It is also just so much more fun: we have more things to do, we spend the majority of our time outside, people are generally happier. I geniunely am just filled with so much joy come summertime.
To no surprise, I notice my older son is the same (of course I’m hoping our younger son is also, but it’s a little early to tell). As a fellow summer baby (May Gemini season), he also seems to live for this season. Because of that, it feels like the ultimate bonding moment for us as a family to make memories. We were just away as a family with my two closest friends from childhood, our husbands, and our kids (5 total) for the weekend and it was such a blast. We were in Maine enjoying the gorgeous weather, playing outside, exploring Portland, polar plunging in the lake (me), playing in the sand and throwing as many rocks into the water as possible (the boys), and just spending time with people we love.
Our 4-year old is in this sweet spot right now where it really feels like memories are being made. Like he is critically aware of what is happening and is storing these moments in the back of his mind to circle back on later in life. There is a bit of intimidation in that because part of me fears he’ll remember if I fuck something up, but mostly it excites me in a way I can’t explain. I see so much of myself in him and in a weird (kind of twisted??) way, it feels like I’m getting to relive my childhood with him. He also is in the stage where he is either not napping and crashing at his bedtime or taking a nap and then not tired at all when he gets in bed. This weekend was the latter and on Saturday night around 8PM he called us into his room and told us he simply wasn’t tired. It was clear as day - the kid was wide awake and the only way he was potentially going to fall asleep was if I laid in bed with him for a good 45 minutes or more, which I didn’t want to do because it was the last night to hang out with my friends. Instead, I pulled out one of my favorite memory makers - a “summer surprise”.