While everyone else bitched and whined about all the things they didn’t have their God given right to do last summer, we had an amazing time. That’s because we had time and we actually like each other. Don’t get me wrong, we missed our “normal” stuff, but we truly enjoyed the time we had to do nothing. And by “nothing” I mean, only one (or was it two) dance class, karate (but not as much), tennis, and summer classes to get a jump start on HS (the boy went into HS with Health and Gym completed, not to mention his honors work). Plus, the weather was great. Hot, like one of the hottest summers I can remember, but it was OK because we had all the time in the world to go swimming. We’d hike in the mornings and swim in the evenings.
This summer, we went from zero to 100 in under 60 seconds. My previous post was about how I can’t understand people whose kids aren’t involved in anything over the summer, and I stand by that, but I don’t think I was ready for everything to happen all at once. And I definitely didn’t expect this weather.
In the amazing book, Polar Bear, Why is Your World Melting, it breaks down climate change so even toddlers can understand it, yet, we still have people who think it’s fake because it still gets cold in the winter. I won’t spend this post blasting you with scientific data about climate change. Instead, I’ll break down one little piece that as it’s explained in the book. Places that were once dry are becoming wet. I picked this particular fact because this is how my summer looked. It was a frickin monsoon of a summer.
When you have a kid who plays softball, rain is not your friend. We were coming off a year of not playing due to the pandemic. Everyone just wanted to get back out and back on the fields. Added bonus, I coached this summer. When Sunshine was in t-ball, I swore I would never coach her again. Then, I coached soccer, which I love doing, so I thought, why not give softball another go. After this year, I will never coach softball again. Literally half of our regular season games were rained out. Half. In a season where there are only 13 games, that makes for very little softball to be played. We played 1 game all season with a full team. One. They tacked on an extra week, which was two whole games, to make up for the games we didn’t get to play. We had to forfeit one of those two because we didn’t have enough players.
Aside from softball, the rain affected everything we did. Strawberry picking, raspberry picking, and blueberry picking were rushed because we had to get it in between storms. Hiking had to be put on hold due to mud and rain. The zoo had to be pushed back until it wasn’t too hot or wasn’t raining. The pool didn’t get as much use as it has in the past.
Yet, with all of that, we still packed in the fun. We got a few hikes in. We toured new places. I swam more this year than any other year. We went kayaking. We went fishing. We eventually did get in the things that we love, such as berry picking and the zoo. We got to hang out with friends. We got to go visit Grandpa and Grammy. I’m sad that the rain made it feel like I lost time with my babies, but I’m thankful for the time I do get to share with them. School is just around the corner and the years are coming to a close where they are going to want to hang out with their mom during the summer. I’ll take what I can get now.