They’re Here

It’s here.

They’re here.  Finally, finally.

After counting months and then weeks and then days and even today–hours.  Finally they are here.

The dog days of summer are here.

They obliged me this morning.  (Chanelle helped by holding her siblings captive.)  A rare occurrence for us.  All three in the frame and (almost) looking at the camera.

Meadow is such a rebel.

It doesn’t make sense that school is over because just last week we went to Niagara, right?  (Or so it feels).  How has a month passed since I last wrote about our out of country endeavors? (Saying we left the country sounds so exotic–but we all know that we were still close enough to spit into New York. (Not that I would ever do that.)

Anyway, I went searching for a picture of the kids on the first day of school–just to see how much different they look now.  I admire those people who take the exact same picture at the beginning and end of the year every single year.  How organized they are!  Me? Well, as much as I’d like, I’m just not a member of that cool crowd.  I get some random photos of my kids looking annoyed at the fact that I’m taking the picture.  However, I am happy to say that the big changes that happened this year. . .

Happened more on the inside.  Hair is a little shorter, or longer, or darker, or lighter, but otherwise–they still look like my ‘little’s.  (I chose to remain in denial of their continual growth, so no need to inform me otherwise.)

May swept by me in a blur.  A blur of soccer games and sickness.  A blur of end of the year parties and photo shoots.  A blur of longer days and the readjusting our feet to the feel of grass between our toes.  May is what I call preparation.  Preparation for things to come.

Like quiet evenings watching the sun lazily make her way to the horizon.

Afternoons of brave explorations into the wild. . .

Discovering creatures. . .

And loving on them. . .

May is a gift, an easing into, the dogs days of summer that we love so much.

The thing that happens with the entrance of each new summer break, is that I become more and more aware that these days are fleeting.  For only so long will my little adventurers be with me.  For only so many years will they cheer when we decide to explore the world around us or dip our feet into the creek.  Before I know it, their alarms will be set and summer mornings will take them to summer jobs or to soccer practice or to friends and to the life that they are building away from the one we’ve created with them.

The story is as old as time and the story is as it should be.  Our job, my job, is not only to give them wings, but to let them fly.

So I enter these dog days with a keen awareness of the way things are, they way things have been for so long, while also keeping watch over what will be.  The way their life and my life will change as the years go by.  For me, the only way I know how to breathe through these changing years is to document.  To write our life as a story.  To live our life of our story.  Some days are filled with adventure and grand moments. . .

But mostly, we write a quiet, mundane story that is beautiful in the simplest of ways.

All of it, worth recording.

Backpacks are packed away, lunch boxes are put away.  Bring on the dog days.  We’ll enjoy them while they are here, because before I know it these little faces. . .

Will be robed and capped with tassels hanging by their cheeks. . .

Well, again.

Happy Summer Break, Friends.