What's Not to Love?

N started a gymnastics class the other day. As I sat in the waiting room without the boys and watched her through the glass,  I couldn't help but overhear the two moms talking behind me. OK, fine, I probably could have helped it, if I had tried. But I didn't try. So, as I was eavesdropping, I overheard them talk about being teachers in the same school, and now being home with their kids for the summer.

"Are you enjoying your summer?"

"Enjoying it? It's GREAT. I mean, whats not to love?"

I almost laughed out loud at her obvious sarcasm. What's not to love?  How about the whining? The fighting? The screaming? The never ending adjustment issues we all face as we get used to spending every waking moment together?

I briefly turned around to show my appreciation for her sentiments, and that's when I saw it.

The look of complete and utter sincerity on her face.

She actually meant it.

I do love summer at home with my kids. I love the free time, and the fact that we can spend our days however we want to, and not having to get up early and rush out the door every morning. And soon I will love other parts of summer. But right now, not quite two weeks into it, we are most certainly not in What's not to love? mode. In fact, we are still rather firmly entrenched in How will we survive without killing each other? mode.

This phase will pass. I know it will. And soon, there will be a  lot of things we love about summer.

But even then, I tend to think that I won't go quite so far as to say Whats not to love?, because in spite of all that I do love, the first two weeks of summer have reminded me that there are also a few things not to love.

Like swim lessons, as your eight year old freaks out when she's told to jump off the diving board, and your five year old refuses to do what he's told, and your three year old, who hasn't taken lessons at all, decides to jump into the pool. Simultaneously.

And like the locker room after swim lessons, with the two screaming boys who ultimately require us, once again, to do the walk of shame to the parking lot, barefoot and in wet clothes.

Like deciding that summer is the perfect time to potty train O, and then thinking that he can now go to the frozen yogurt place without a diaper on.

So that he can pee all over their floor.

Like the fact that someone is always talking to me.

Yes, I realize I'm their mother. But the thing is, I'm also an introvert. At times, the two are mutually exclusive. No one tells you that, but it's true.

Yeah, I'd say there are just a few things not to love about summer.

But here I was, apparently alone in this.

I went back to watching N. She was pulled aside from the group of girls she had started the class with, and was now getting her own private gymnastics lesson. I realize it must be remedial gymnastics, for daughters of women who could never do a cartwheel. Although she can do a cartwheel--quite well in fact. But I decide that she somehow must have not have been up to the skill level of the other girls in her group, and that's why she's getting private attention. I am perplexed since one girl is about four, but she must be the daughter of a woman who could do a cartwheel, and has probably been taking gymnastics since birth.

My heart hurts for N. I wonder if she's about to cry. She doesn't look like it, but I know that if I had been pulled into remedial gymnastics at her age, I would have cried. She goes through the drill that the teacher asks her to do. I watch the other group, and the four year old gymnast-since-birth. They don't look that far ahead of N. I decide it's definitely because she's the daughter of a mother who could never do a cartwheel.

I give her a big smile and thumbs up as she passes by the window to get a drink, and I hope she can read my mind.

Don't cry, sweet girl. It's OK to be a remedial gymnast. Unless, of course, you really WANT to cry. Then screw it, we'll just leave and go eat ice cream.

I listen to the women behind me as they talk some more about how much they loooooove summer.

I decide they're pathological liars. Pathological liars who can do cartwheels.

Eventually, N is done. I plaster a big smile on my face, in case she is about to cry.

"Mom!" she tells me excitedly. "I was the only one who showed up for my class today! All those other girls are in the cheer leading class! I got my OWN PRIVATE lesson!"

I tell her how great that is.

I don't tell her what an idiot her mother is. She'll figure it out for herself soon enough.

"I LOVE gymnastics. Did you see me do those cartwheels? And I made friends with one of the cheer leading girls. It's so weird. I don't know how, but I seem to make friends every where I go."

On the way home, we pass a sign for a financial planner, and N asks me what that is. I give her a brief explanation, and she says "Oooooh, I get it. Kind of like, should I buy an i pad.....or a unicorn."

"Yeah, just like that," I tell her.

"I would totally buy the unicorn," she tells me.

"Me too", I tell her. "Definitely the unicorn".

And for a brief moment, at least, I think What's not to love?