Before launching full steam into summer, my childhood best friend and I met up for a girls' weekend in Phoenix. We stayed at the Omni Resort in Scottsdale, which was such a treat! We read by the pool, lounged, brunched, watched "Little Women" and explored the Phoenix Art Museum. It was a lovely respite from the pull of our everyday responsibilities... a.k.a. our seven(!) children.
Returning to Seattle, the school year came to an end with a flurry of activities: pre-K graduation, class celebrations, a field trip to Vashon Island, and our traditional last-day-of-school ice cream outing. Summer has officially begun, meaning we've transitioned into days of biking, beaching, badmintoning, and bumming around the house!
Few things feel more like summer to me, than swimming, so our anchor activity for the next 11 weeks is to get to the pool as much as possible. We're prioritizing family swim hours at The West Seattle Health Club and have also added private lessons. My hope is that by the end of summer, the twins have made notable progress.
For me, summer often translates to shorter work blocks, a messier house, and less time to myself overall -- a combination that doesn't always result in my best parenting. I'm supporting myself by adding in nanny hours on Mondays and Fridays, removing slack and work email from my phone, and being a little more lax about treats for the summer. I started a new routine of serving malts on Mondays and choosing a movie from my childhood to watch with the kids. For our makeshift backyard movie nights, I open up the French doors in our playroom to let that summertime breeze waft in. So far, our neighbors may have overheard scenes from "Homeward Bound" and "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" :)
Looking for that "easy" button,
- SJW
