Goals.

Yesterday, Sadie completely surprised and blew me away by putting her face in the water and paddling several feet across the pool. This kid, who is somewhat terrified of the water, and who despite two years of weekly swim lessons, sinks like a rock the moment her feet hit the water, decided that she was going to teach herself to swim. And she's doing it. At the beginning of the summer, she and I talked about how I really wanted her to learn to swim and to ride a bike this summer. We talked about how those could be goals that she worked toward. To be honest, I really didn't hold out much hope on the swimming goal, and I figured if she learned to ride a bike, we'd call it a successful summer.

Besides being immensely proud of her progress, it has made me think a bit about where I stand with the goals I set for myself for the summer. After all, the summer is nearly half over (wah!). I had basically set one significant goal for myself, and that was to enjoy--really, truly enjoy--the time off with the girls. to stop myself from getting hung up on 'getting stuff done' at the expense of making memories. This time is so precious and fleeting and before I know it, they won't want to spend entire days with me. A year ago, I think it fair to say that I wasn't making the most of my time off with them and I made a promise to myself that this year would be different. And you know what? It is! It really, truly has been pretty great so far.

In part, I have just adjusted my expectations about what having a day off means, and that has helped. So that means that my floors are filthy, my laundry is piled up higher than can humanly be tackled at this point, and dinner is often whatever is easiest to throw together. We get out and to the beach when we get there, rather than me being on a clock all the time and rushing the girls constantly. We stay until we feel like leaving rather than rushing home for naps or so I can run errands.

The other contributing factor has been my attempts at 'options for spontaneity'. Each week, I scan the community pages to see what is going on in the area (last week it was a children's theartre production of Rapunzel and a free outdoor showing of E.T.). I don't tell the kids about any of these things, and more or less at the last minute, if the fancy strikes me, I suggest something and we go. If the ice cream truck comes by 10 minutes before bedtime (which it has the infuriating habit of doing), sometimes I let the kids run out in their pajamas and partake. Again, this goes back to not having grand expectations about things. Going to see E.T. was a lot of fun for all of us, but by 10pm, Eden was done and we left, long before the movie ended.

So overall, I am really happy with how I'm doing on this one. Last year at this time, I had my doubts about whether or not any of us were truly enjoying the summer. This year, I have no doubt whatsoever that we all are.