True confession: I hate holidays. Memorial Day, New Years Eve, Fourth of July…they all give me heightened levels of anxiety while simultaneously giving me FOMO. But then at the end of the day they are usually nothing short of disorganized chaos.
Each year the holidays arrive whether you want them to or not. Memorial Day has now come and gone and it was yet another holiday where we told ourselves we were not going to go to the beach or take the boat out and have to fight the heat, the traffic, the drunk drivers, and the mob of tourists.
But we did it anyways, you guys. We went to the beach on Memorial Day weekend. And not just once. Twice. And our reason was simple. You only get 18 summers with your children.
A friend quoted that to me recently and it has struck a cord in my heart. You only get 18 summers. Only eighteen Memorial Days. Eighteen “first beach days of season.” Eighteen firework shows on the Fourth of July. Eighteen baseball season openers. Eighteen last day of school celebrations. Eighteen. That’s it. And after that they are off on their own, being the strong independent little humans you raised them to be. They are spending their summers studying abroad, back packing in Europe, renting beach houses with friends in Palm Springs, or road tripping with their girlfriends (or boyfriends, you know, love is love) across the country.
These days, my summers look a lot different than they used to. I have traded my beach magazines for sand toys and my two piece bikini for a toddler-chasing-approved one piece. My bottomless mimosas are now bottomless sippy cups of waters. Endless day drinking has been replaced with endlessly reapplying sunscreen to sandy little legs. And at the end of the day the only thing I am drunk off is baby giggles. Everyone says your life will change when you have kids. Thank God they were right.
Eighteen summers is all you get. So I have decided to say yes to all the things that summer brings for us and our boys. To cancel the babysitter and take the kids out with us. To pack up all the baby crap and drag it along with us. To stay up a little bit later and play outside just a little bit longer. Because eighteen years are going to go by quicker than you know it.
xx Priscilla
Not to depress you, but I really doubt you have 18 of all those holidays. When in high school, they might spend some of those holidays with friends. For example, go with friends to the beach on the 4th of July. And, you might even be happy about it.