Farewell, Summer

We’ve had a really nice summer, and I’m just not ready for it to come to an end. For starters, my big girl is finally getting to go to Pre-K, a day that she has been anticipating for a very long time. I know that she is ready, and thought that I was ready, but now I’m not so sure. Life will be so different without her around – our youngest will no longer have her favorite playmate around during the day, and I won’t have my biggest helper. Mercifully, my son won’t be starting until after Labor Day, so at least I can spread out my boo-hooing a little bit 🙂

Since Annie Rose’s birth and death on June 12th, we’ve really stuck together as a family for the rest of the summer. We have done our best to be good to each other, giving each other space when needed and talking things over when questions arose. We were surrounded by family and friends on July 16th at Annie’s funeral, and we buried Annie and Lucy side by side at a cemetery near our home. We’ve taken some nice family vacations to visit both sets of grandparents, and we even got to meet our newest baby cousin and celebrate his Baptism. Most of our weeks have been filled with trips to our neighborhood pool, the library, and the gym, but this last week of summer, I made sure to squeeze in some last-minute trips to the zoo and the science museum.

I’ll always look back on this summer with fondness. It was the summer when we welcomed Annie Rose to the world, when our family learned (once again) true humility in the face of amazing generosity, when we learned to love each other in new ways. Things weren’t perfect by any means, but they aren’t supposed to be, are they? As my children go off to school, I know that I will appreciate the time to run errands without buckling and unbuckling car seats, but I know that I will also long to have them all under my roof again, safe at home and together. Thank the Lord for weekends 🙂