Summer Is Here. Can We Please Slow Down?

Every year, summer arrives and I tell myself the same thing: this one is going to be different. We are going to be intentional. We are going to soak it up. We are going to make memories.

And then camp orientation is at 8am on the other side of town, swim lessons end at 11:47 (apparently?), and somehow I am eating a granola bar in my car in a parking lot of a rec center I've never been to, checking Slack on my phone while my kid is asking if we can stop for ice cream. Again.

Here's the thing nobody tells you about summer: it doesn't actually slow down. It just trades your regular chaos for a different, more logistically complicated chaos. The school schedule disappears and in its place you get a rotating door of camps that start at wildly inconvenient times, end before lunch, are located in four different zip codes, and cost approximately one mortgage payment each. You become a full-time scheduler, chauffeur, and snack logistics coordinator all while trying to hold down actual work and a semblance of your own life.

And yet. Every August, I do the math. Eighteen summers. That's what we get. Eighteen summers between the day they're born and the day they head off to whatever comes next. If you're reading this and your kids are somewhere in the middle of that count, like mine are you already know the math hits different every single year.

So how do we actually slow down? A few things that have genuinely helped me:

Pick one weekly non-negotiable. Not a grand vacation. Not a Pinterest-worthy project. Just one simple thing you do together every week. Friday night porch time. Pizza-party movie night. Sunday morning pancakes. A weekly swim, a walk, a movie. A Tuesday walk to get a slurpee. Something they can anticipate and you can protect. Routines inside the chaos are what kids actually remember.

Let the schedule be ugly and do it anyway. Yes, you will drive across town to pick someone up from a half-day beads and boba camp (yes, this is a real camp that my daughter somehow found and insisted she go to) that ends at 12:15 on a Tuesday. While you're there, put your phone in the glove box for the drive home. Ask one real question. Listen to the whole answer, even if it takes until you get home. That twelve-minute car ride counts.

Say yes to the random stuff. The spontaneous water balloon fight. The 9pm request to sleep in the backyard. The "can we go get froyo right now" on a Wednesday. These are the things they bring up years later…not the planned stuff, the stuff that just happened because someone said yes.

Stop trying to make every moment Instagram-worthy. Memorable and photogenic are not the same thing. Some of our best summer moments have been completely undocumented, a little sweaty, and mildly chaotic. Let it be real.

And give yourself some grace. You are doing a hard thing. Building a childhood and a career and a life at the same time, with a schedule that makes no logical sense and snacks that are somehow always running low. You cannot design a perfect summer. But you can show up for it, a little more each week.

Three months. Eighteen chances. This is one of them. So, let’s make it count, even if making it count looks like ice cream in a rec center parking lot with your kid.

And in case you needed it, here's your permission slip: asking for help is not a weakness. Offloading the errands, the grocery runs, the meal prep, the mental load of all the things, to TULA, to a neighbor, to anyone willing is honestly one of the smartest moves you can make this summer. Because nobody is going to remember that you kept up with the laundry. Nobody is going to remember that you handled the dry cleaning or restocked the snack drawer. But they will remember the Tuesday you said yes to the water park on a whim, because you actually had the margin to do it.

Free up the forgettable. Show up for the unforgettable. That's not a luxury, that's a strategy.