Reality

The reality of this summer is I want to crawl into a hole until it is over.  Literally today without one bit of grief from my husband I crawled back into bed after helping the twins get breakfast and slept until noon.  I was having an awful time sleeping last night and I guess everything just caught up to me.  All the emotion I am typically so good at holding in kind of leaked out {at like midnight}.

So this morning I slept.

But just as the title of this post says, my reality is met with the reality that the twins have no idea why summers (probably for the rest of our life) engage our family in a period of grief and sadness.  They don't understand why I want to stay in bed.  They really only briefly want to know if I am ok when I get headaches.  They probably don't really remember Charlie very much at all.

June 30th is so special and in the same thought I think July 17 is so devastating.  But the twins are two and they are busy and they don't understand!  They want to go swimming, swing at the park, go fishing, dig in the dirt, go camping, take walks, run through the sprinkler, eat ice cream, and the list goes on!  Who would blame them!?  It's summer!  When I think about all this the reality is that they are what has kept me getting up out of bed for the last year.

Today is a good example of that reality.  After my hibernation period, John decided it was time to take the twins camping.  We packed up our things and headed out to AJ Jolly Park.  We needed to mark something off our summer bucket list.  John is good at keeping us going and helping us make new happy memories together.  And it was a happy time.  It was their first camping trip.  They were able to fish with their new fishing poles, eat hot dogs that were cooked on the camping stove, roast marshmallows over the fire, and sleep in a tent in the "forest" as they call it.

John talked me into driving back home (which didn't take much coaxing because if you know me at all you know camping is not my thing...) to spend a quiet night at home alone.  And it's been a good night.  I was able to indulge in some cookies and ice cream and read a few chapters in a book I started forever ago!  I also made a quick video of their first camping excursion because what's a mom to do in a quiet peaceful house without her kids and husband!?

While I am thankful for this much needed quiet summer I still need help to get through some of these days.  We are coming up on some of the hardest days I think this year can possibly contain.  I hope I can make it through them all with a little bit of that joy that I want my kids to experience.