Stealing vacation right now...

I will camp with them next year. I will either be working as a teacher (say a prayer please!) or I will push aside my work guilt and make the time for ME.

My work guilt is self inflicted, I work with my family and they never take vacation time so how can I? It is not like they don't put up with me taking time -- I have taken plenty of time off the last 5 years for my schooling to become a teacher. I just have not had much vacation time that is actual vacation time. I LOVE vacation that is vacation. I love spending time making memories. I sneak it in on long weekends. I sneak it in on weeknights and weekends. I steal vacation moments and sneak them into the every day time.... but it is wearing.

I am tired. It is hard to leave work at 5, make memories until 10pm, wind down and regroup until midnight or 1am (or 2am). I can do it, but after several days I am so tired. A girl needs a little sleep. But now is not the time. Now is the time when my kids are still tweens. They will still share long walks and talks. They will laugh with me and at me... and I with them. I am happy when they are happy. They are not yet teens who shun and despise their mom (this is the job of teens, I understand).

This past week was a joy. I enjoyed watching my kids fish and camp. I loved watching them be the big kids who looked after my best friend's little kids. I loved watching them take the lead in the talent show -- and loved watching them enjoy the little ones who made the act with their cuteness and mayhem. Next year I will get my own tent and camp with my kids and my friend. I will stay up late at the camp fire, I will tell ghost stories, I will giggle in the tent, I will wake with them to enjoy morning excercise (okay, maybe that is pushing it a bit.....).

I will take the time.

Time is running out on their childhoods.... they are 11 and 12. Teen years approach and I will enjoy the drama of who likes who. I will keep reminding them to live with kindness and to follow their internal sense of right and wrong. They know. They are smart kids. I will remind them and pray they stay who they are right now. They are kind. They are smart. They are beautiful. They are caring. I am proud of them. I am grateful. I am blessed. I'm sick of wishing I had more time.... I will take the time now and pay it back later.... They are old enough to play cards and have great conversations about life. You don't get 2nd chances to make memories like the ones we made this week. Now to start taking better care of myself so that I'm here to make them for years to come.

Childhood is slipping away... my mom said I would enjoy each phase with my kids more than the last. When they were newborns I didn't want them to grow -- NO, I love THIS stage the best. Mom would say, "Don't worry, you will love the next one even more!" She was right. I have loved each phase more than the last. I love right now a whole lot though!!!
Sometimes it is the best just to listen to the music they are making with their laughter.....