A Summer of Intention

At the beginning of summer, I set my summer intentions and shared the following post on Instagram:

Summer Reflections

At the beginning of summer, I knew this summer would be unlike any that we had seen before. When we purchased our cottage in October, we intended to spend the summers here, we just didn’t anticipate that we would be here largely in isolation.

The time in isolation has been fruitful for our family. We transitioned to being a family of 5. We leave our little yard to take walks and go to the pool, and have had time to develop new rhythms and routines.

As I transition back to teaching and summer comes to a close, I’m taking time to process and share my summer reflections.

Spend time outdoors watching the girls play

Our cottage is in a community with pools and lakes, and Mabel and Matilda have made so much progress with their swimming skills this summer! After weeks of swim lessons, Mabel has learned how to dive, tread water, and swim 25 meters using TWO different strokes! Matilda can swim independently, float on her back, and has walked to the end of both the low dive and the high dive. They approach swimming with joy and a determination to become stronger! It’s comforting to know that they both have a healthy relationship with the water.

We have also spent a lot of time playing in the yard, and turning our shed into a WEshed play gym, with a trampoline, climbing ladders, and lots of fun swings. It is been such a great area for the girls to actively exercise through play.

Choose bakes and recipes that teach new skills

I was encouraged by my mom to sign up for the “Taste of Home” baking challenge. Each month, I was sent a challenge to bake one of the “Taste of Home” favorite recipes. With each recipe, I learned something new.

Last week I made my very first flourless cake. It was far from perfect, but I learned how to make an egg white meringue, and also how to whip egg yolks to ribbon stage. I had fun problem solving in the moment, and was able to name to Emily what I would do differently next time. I am far from an expert baker, but I definitely enjoy the baking process!

Engage the girls through play of their choice

Our summer morning routine has gone something like this: the girls wake up and ask me to play Barbies, and then about 30 minutes later they get hungry and tell me to go downstairs and bake something while they get dressed “fancy” for breakfast.

I prepare one of their favorite weekday morning bakes, and when breakfast is ready, the “sister moms” appear at my fancy restaurant. Over breakfast I ask them questions, such as where they are from (Mabel is always from New York, Matilda is always from Pennsylvania) and what they are planning to do that day. Then about halfway through the questions, Mabel refers to me as “Dad” and I learn that they are both actually my daughters. We play this same imaginative scenario out EVERY morning.

As I think through my summer reflections, these small moments are so precious to me.

Spend time studying, reading, and learning with Emily

I’ve struggled this summer to engage in deep studying, reading, and learning. I’ve limited my consumption of news and have avoided reading books that are deeply theoretical or explore subjects that are difficult for me to process.

Emily and I have focused most of our “learning” time on trying to figure out how to care for all three girls and function as a family of 5. I had a lot of worries and fears as we approached the birth of our third daughter. The anticipation of the unknown was overwhelming, but we now have settled into a new routine that is working for us. We’ve experimented with new daily rhythms, attempted to balance family time with independent time, and are trying to give each other breaks when we need them.

Model healthy adult reading habits

I am really grateful for our random shelf of books at the cottage. Last year we went to a book swap, and I chose a stack of books based on their light spine color, so they would pop off the dark Jasper green shelves. It has been fun to select books from the shelf and slowly read my way through them. For the past few weeks, I have been reading Goldie Hawn’s autobiography, “A Lotus Grows in the Mud”, and I LOVE it. I probably never would have chosen this book on my own, but since it’s here, I’ve enjoyed reading it.

In the book, Goldie Hawn recalls advice that her father once gave her. He said, “Expectation is greater than realization.” He was referring to success in the excerpt, but I have applied the saying to my summer experience.

I have been guilty of entering past summers with so many expectations and so many ideas, that my summer reflections are simply that summer break always goes too quickly. We have attempted summer bucket lists in the past, but I never accomplish as much as I want and then feel so incredibly sad when it comes to an end.

This summer, I tried to be more present in the moments. I tried to recall my list of intentions when I felt myself getting anxious or lonely, and just allow the summer to unfold.

Coach the girls on family rhythms and routines, and work towards independence

The girls can now independently set the table at mealtimes and clear their plates from the table at the end of mealtimes. The girls can independently get dressed in the morning. They can put their clothes into their drawers after they have been washed. With coaching support, the girls can tidy up toys twice a day: once before lunch, and again before dinner. We have read our top 10 tidying books for kids with the girls, and they understand that tidying is a normal rhythm to our daily life. It can be difficult to teach kids to tidy, but we are practicing tips for tidying with kids that make it easier, especially when we all work together.

Supporting the girls as they work towards independence with rhythms and routines has been SLOW, but we are starting to see the fruits of our work. We even created a free download to outline our process for “Teaching Kids to Complete Routines Independently”. It is fun to encourage them and to gradually give them more responsibilities.

Our littlest girl has also turned into a really great supervisor!

Write across different genres

This summer Emily and I have been able to produce a lot of new content for our website and Instagram account. We’re learning how to produce new content, update previously published content, and work with contributors. We published our first “Tidy Dad Asks” roundup, highlighting new routine plans from 18 contributors. I love having this public space to process my feelings and showcase little aspects of our life. It is becoming an incredible diary to look back on someday.

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