In my element

"She doesn't warm up quickly to strangers. She'll probably be shy and scream at you if she even looks at you," said my cousin as she presented her daughter to me.

I kneeled down to her level and smirked as she mostly covered her eyes with her hands, like you would watching a scary movie.

So I copied her. Mostly covering my eyes and attempting a half-drunk game of peek-a-boo.
Between that and a round of tickle monster...her smile grew and a few moments later we were splashing around in the pool.
And by splashing, I mean watching her dump forty plastic toys into the pool. I would grab one at a time and ask her where it should go, and she plopped it back into the bucket. Over and over and over.

"That was fast!" squealed my cousin.
I was beaming. The first person to get her little daughter to smile and play within minutes.
She is barely 2 and in the 30% for height and weight.
A tiny little spitfire with her mama's squinty smile and sassy attitude.

We played "throw all the surrounding items into the pool" followed by "teeter around the edge and nearly give me a heart attack" for a while as her mama got a break from the craziness for a bit.

I was in love.

Although a vacation typically involves extended periods of sitting in or around a body of water, for me, I felt antsy. Like something was missing.
Sure, Mark and the dogs were missing. They are always around me by my own pool and keep me relatively entertained.
I could not relax.
I was counting down the days to get back home. Back to my own chaos.
Because once back home, I am a few days closer to my own brood.

I just smile a bit each day knowing that we are getting a teensy bit closer to holding a wee lil' babe, yet, at the same time, basking in the glories of these child-free days.
The days where we can pack up an head out for a day trip on a whim.
The days where I can drink til drunk if I feel like it...nap it off...and do it all over again.

The dogs, regardless of their bad boy antics for the first 3ish years, have seem to settled into a better routine and I don't have to constantly worry about when the next bloodshed will happen.

Burn turned four last week. Which I remembered about a week late.

Mark and I rounded out five years of marriage and ten "together" years.

Every day has been good to us. Even the bad days. So we didn't feel the need for a lavish affair.
Instead, a few neighbors came over and we drank by the pool at sunset and called it a night.

It's August and our weekends will be jam packed with pool days, and birthdays, and concerts, and friends.

And, in all honesty, for a split second, while sweating in the Tennessee sun, I thought, "man...chili and football and sweaters and cooler weather sound really good right now."
I swear though..it was only for the tiniest second.
I don't know what got into me. :)

I will remember a quote from the driver that took me home from the airport, "you just have to look past the details sometimes."  We were stuck in traffic and watched driver's whip in and out of lanes, essentially getting no further than when they started.  We laughed at how ridiculous it looked. It made me think about how hyper-focused I can get about events in my life. Especially bad times. Sometimes it seems like it will never get better.
But life is funny like that.
Whatever was troubling me then, is just a memory now.
You just have to look past the details sometimes.
If the last four years have taught me anything, it's that we have control over nothing, really.
What is meant to happen will happen, in its own time.

For us, it's nice to have a general guideline of to-do's and wants and needs.
But keep is loose. Plans can change as fast as summer weather storms.
Especially in this next year.
Hopefully our last child-less year.

What are you plans (or lack thereof) to make summer feel like it will never end?