The Last Drop of Summer

I looked at the calendar this morning and realized that I had to tear off the month of July.   August is already here?  Wait a minute, Memorial Day was just yesterday!

My mother-in-law warned me about this.  “When the kids become teens, the days will go by in a flash,” she said.  She told me this when my kids were six, four and two.  Some of those days felt 48 hours long and I didn’t believe her.  I remember counting the long minutes until the hubby would arrive home and I could grab a blissful hour in the bathtub with a good book.

But she’s right.  My kids are now 17, 14 and 12 and I realize that I have just six more years before my last kiddo goes off to college.   That clock on the wall spins out of control on most days.  This is has been one of the fastest summers that I can ever remember.  June started off as the month of Mommy travel– I had booked one too many trips for work and was constantly at the airport.  I was feeling a huge case of Mommy guilt every time I left for the airport.  I vowed to cut out the travel for the rest of the summer.

But then, July was the month of kid travel– the three of them went to four different camps and one kid went to visit a friend in Texas.  It was a new experience to have the kids gone so much.  Most of the time I had one kid or another at home with the exception of one week when all three of them were gone.   A taste of empty nest syndrome settled in, but that week went by in a complete blur with work, writing and barefoot water skiing.

Last week, my two oldest kids were off to New York at two different camps.  The oldest went off to the Rochester Institute of Technology for a career exploration camp.  The youngest kiddo and I were having dinner one night and I said, “Imagine… next year in August, David will move to RIT for college.”

My youngest put down his fork and his eyes grew wide.  “You mean David won’t be home anymore?”

“Not until Thanksgiving and Christmas,” I said.

We sat there in silence and the realization hit us both hard.  My heart skipped a beat as I contemplated what it would be like not to have my kiddo around each night.

“I will miss him,” he said.  There was a sad look on his face.

“I will, too,” I said.

I had to put the thought out of my mind as I wasn’t ready to face how quickly time had gone by, how quickly the mothering clock was ticking.   So for the next few weeks we’re kicking back and having family time.  We are heading up to Michigan to spend time with my parents and my cousins who are coming in from Missouri.

I’m hanging on to every last drop of summer before I have to tear off the month of August from the calendar.

When Karen Putz isn’t pulling her kids around on a tube behind the boat, she can be found blogging at A Deaf Mom Shares Her World.

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Tags: empty nest, karen putz, summer, Teens

Category: teens