Summer Rain

I'm sitting in the car as rain pours down and Taylor sings quietly through the speakers. My window is slightly open, and the rain mists onto my leg like an anointing.  My 2-year-old niece is asleep in the back seat and I want her to sleep as long as her little body will allow. 

She's staying over tonight and I know how precious these days are.  I don't have anyone falling asleep in the car anymore. They burst out and run inside faster than I can put all my things back in my purse. I don't have to worry about their nap affecting their bedtime, or racing home from the beach before they doze off. 

When I was a little girl, time with my cousins was like gold. We only ever saw them in the summer. And our time together was always special. I had five of them, and though even my husband had many many more, five felt like such a gift. We spent nights out in a camper, and made up dance routines. Summer mornings were passed happily in the pool, ravenous for the PB&J's Gram brought with Juicy Juice boxes and grapes at noon. We went to amusement parks and baseball games and begged for McDonald's. 

What will our kids remember? How will we make moments so special for our children and their cousins? How will summer go down in their memories? A frazzled mom, fuzzy in their rearview mirror, who got upset about the messy house that never quite seemed to get picked up when there was no school? The mom that said "later" to playing catch with her son, only to discover that later never happened. 

Or the mom who suggested playing Sonic Uno on a rainy day? The mom who never stopped requiring her teenage girls to read the Bible out loud on their boba tea dates, because even if they weren't interested, she believed that God's word was more powerful than their teenage petulance. 

Summer for moms can be hard as hell. But summer for our kids can be magical (whether or not they're lucky enough to have cousins in the midst of it.) 

I want to be a mom who is strong enough to acknowledge the rain but live deeply into the rainbow. I want to throw out the grudges I'm tempted to hold on to from yesterday, and love my children through our shared moments of frustration, boredom, angst, and annoyance. If we push through those moments at their side, simple day after simple day, will our days together become more meaningful? A milestone of making it through the rain and glorying at the beauty of the rainbow, together?