Summer Reconnection

I love the reconnection to my B's the summer brings. I always feel close to my kiddos, but when they are in school, I think there are so many distractions and demands from activities, homework and people, we lose a bit of our emotional capacity to stay truly connected. Sadly, it is hard to recognize when that tiny bit of disconnect happens. Now that we are home for the summer and together all the time, I think we all feel more at peace and relaxed. I have always felt my B's played better together during the summer than at any other time, but I never realized the school year affected my own relationship with them, as well.
Talking with them in the car on our way to swim lessons is what brought this to mind. They asked me if there were actual camps where they take their lessons, and I said yes, but I didn't want to enroll them, because then they would be gone all day and I wanted to be with them over their vacation. Britt piped up and said, "Yah, you already have to throw us away when we go to school!" I got a kick out of this... I always say I feel like I am "throwing them to the wolves" when school is in session, meaning other kids and people in general. There's a little truth to what Britt said, though - quite often I do feel like I have to "throw them away," because truth be told? I would much rather keep them right next to me, safe and secure and 100% loved. Lucky for the little B's, Brady and and I don't believe in Home School. If we didn't think Home School produced such socially awkward kids/adults, though, we would so keep them home!
Anyway, we've just been hanging out a lot, so far this summer. Brailey said to me, "Mom, I really like it when you come down to the park (this is what we call our play structure) and talk to us." And that is what summertime is really all about, isn't it? Having the time to really listen and talk about nothing important at all without the distraction school life brings. Ironically, we seem to talk a lot about things that happened over the school year. But like Dr. Phil says, you have to talk about the little things in order to talk about the big things.
So even though the weather hasn't been as nice as we'd hoped for, we've still been enjoying every second of our summer. I'm grateful to have this time for reconnection. And I'm betting a lot of other people are experiencing the same thing. Blessed be summer vacation!