Are you a better mom in the winter or the spring? The fall or the summer? I feel like a better mom in the summer. Here’s why:

In the winter, I tend to hide out. I love the cold. I love the snow. But I find it excruciating to search for 47 gloves, socks, scarves, and hats to pile my littles outside when someone will invariably have to go to the bathroom almost immediately. It’s so much easier to stay in and put on a movie...and 10 pounds.

Another reason why I feel like a better mom in the summer is that, while the spring is lovely, rain brings me back to point number one. There’s nothing worse than having to pick up the kids from preschool when it’s pouring rain. Not only do I have to walk a mile to the door to grab them (okay, not a mile, but it feels like it when the rain is beating down) and then back to the car, but then I get to load them into their seats while my backside gets drenched. And this always happens about an hour after I washed my hair and gave it a nice blow out.

Fall is my second favorite, but the hard part about fall is that school has started and we’re easing into the blend of multiple over-full schedules again.

Summer. There's something freeing about those months. Reduced schedules. No major early-morning requirements. Kids can go from pajamas to bathing suits and back to jammies again with no mommy guilt. In fact, I feel quite proud when they have spent the entire day outside playing, when the TV has stayed cold all day long, and when everyone has sun-kissed cheeks and noses.

But along with the settling of the routine, and the lightning of the load, there can tend to come a misplacement of other priorities. For us, morning devotions are a big priority. This is something I do with my kids, most commonly led by the teenagers, on a daily basis. It will take strict intentionality to make sure the daily devotions continue through the summer months when everyone is waking at different hours and heading in different directions.

Another concern is mealtimes. Do we relax the guidelines and the schedule so much that we let go of things like family dinners or family breakfasts? It takes intentional commitment to those family times to make sure they happen even in the relaxed schedules of the summer.

The third thing is communication. Without the extra time in the car going from place to place and with the lightning are some of the stringent requirements like meals and sporting events and things like that, when do we make up for the lost time for communication? Maybe a month before we’d have spent 40 minutes in a car chatting with the kids on the way to this or that, but now that time is gone.

It all comes back to that intentionality. Plan ahead for the coming summer months. Be intentional about Bible study, meal times, and communication. I guarantee you’ll feel like an even Better Summer Mom!

What are some of the tips you have for really making it work in the summer?

Blessings,

Nicole O'Dell

Photo by Ian Kahn, courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net