Making Summer Beautiful

 

Phineas and Ferb's song is playing in my heart and mind:

 

"It's summer, and where do I begin?"

 

I'm afraid I will spend so much time trying to answer the question that summer will slip through my hands, and I will be left with emptiness where I longed to have joy-filled memories.

 

I want to write my summer story with beauty, full of grace, laughter, fun.  I want to make memories that will etch themselves into my children's minds, recalled twenty years from now around the gathered family table as "remember that summer that we . . . ."

 

Oh I want them to remember. 

 

And I want this time to be filled with things worth remembering.

 

Maybe this figuring out the summer doesn't have to be all that complicated.  Maybe I don't need to be a crazy fanatic mom that schedules every moment.  Maybe I can keep it simple.  Maybe I can have a plan that's attainable, that doesn't get in the way of actually doing something worthwhile.  Maybe that can be my plan--every day do something worthwhile.

 

Maybe it's as simple as being available to the worthwhile thing that knocks on my door.

 

Last weekend my neighbor rang the doorbell with this package of crayola sidewalk paint in her hands.  She said she was cleaning things out in her house and thought the boys might be interested in having it.  We agreed.

 

 

Monday afternoon we set to work.  Jeremiah and Isaiah joined me outside.  We dipped and poured and dabbled.  We created.  I have to admit, it was fun for me too.  What I discovered was that the best pictures were made as we worked together. 

 

 

 I made the outlines.  Butterfly, check.  Cross, check.

 

The boys filled in the pictures, using their imaginations to bring sketches to life.

 

 

 

Isaiah thought the pictures needed to be connected.  He used his brush to connect them.  I love how Jeremiah's blue doodles on the pink and yellow cross looks like a flower. Surprises everywhere.

 

When Isaiah got to the cross, he decided to make another one, so that the first one wouldn't feel alone.

What I learned is that it's not so important what we do this summer, as long as we do it together, making sure I leave room for those boys to teach me, as much as I want to imprint a life worth living on them.

Maybe the imprint that matters most of all is seeing the moments we share as gift, enjoying each one:  entering into the Joy of the One who gives them all.