This morning I got a text from a friend asking, among other things, if I was running a summer marathon and never touching down.
Yes.
That is very much how it feels. There's been a lot of tag team parenting, a lot of if we take two cars then you can leave early with Sophie and get her to practice-type thing, a lot of packing, unpacking, and re-packing, a lot of driving, navigating, registering, and deciphering itineraries.
A lot of color coded maps from my husband.
It distills on my brain like a restless dream, wherein one day you are a normal person entitled to her own thoughts and the next you are this hounded mother of three growing girls who need rides everywhere and no matter what you are never going to get them there on time.
This is a new phase of parenthood. Maybe not technically new, per se, but the old phase is growing ever more outward and shifting into higher gear.
I love my friend who is a few steps ahead of me parenting-wise (and in many other respects), who with her simple, genuine way helped calm me over this increasing speed limit, this expanding frontier.
I realize these pictures do not especially convey the message of a hectic summer...pictures can be misleading that way. They were taken over the weekend when I brought the younger girls up to Utah to meet Roger and Sophie at a volleyball tournament, then switch kids so he could head home and I could continue on with Sophie to another camp.
It was a brief yet lovely moment of being together in these beautiful woods.
While there we discovered some delightful forest sprites.
And this young deer, who watched me as I watched her.
One still moment at the beginning of a new day.
