wearing lately: summer momming

School's out for summer... and summer momming is on. For which my mental preparedness has felt varied, but at least my apparel preparedness is good to go: enter the big tote, easy dresses, comfy slip-on sandals, and cute baseball cap, and I'm ready for action. Ish. 

Summer parenting has always come with a bit of mixed feelings for me - I've got a kid home, and it feels like we should be doing outings and swimming lessons and trips to the park and family BBQs and all that kind of stuff - and I'm lucky to work from home with a fairly flexible schedule to accommodate having a kid on summer break... yet I do still have job obligations, and often a very busy June for work that involves a week of travel (obviously not in 2020 or 2021). Plus I don't love being thrown off my usual routines in general. So it can end up feeling like it's just a lot of juggling, or like I'm only half paying attention to him while I try to answer an email, or like there's a lot of should-ing going on in my head while H is at camp or with a babysitter and I'm working or taking care of the household but feeling like I should be doing all the summer activities with him. And meanwhile some days all I want is to be home alone again, and to read a book in the backyard. Ha!

This year the feelings are even more complicated as my work commitments have a lot more scheduled things (Zooms, bah) than my usual flexible timing. not to mention that I am 31 weeks pregnant...so I'm sometimes rather tired and can't take a whole lot of heat. But at the same time feel like I ought to be doing even more dedicated time with Hendrik to make up for my irritable hormones of the last few months plus the fact that he's about to have his only-child world completely blown up before school starts again. Gah, not helpful mom guilt!

BUT on his last 1/2 day of school I came up with a picnic lunch for us to ride our bikes down to the park with (and in his mind it was an amazing one: pizza Lunchable! I had an avocado, goat cheese, and basil vinaigrette-dressed greens sandwich while he ate uncooked pizza, but okay); then he changed into his bathing suit and we scootered downtown to the little splash pad where he joyfully ran around for an hour while I was able to sit in the shade and keep cool from the mist off the water; and on our arrival home he started right in on his summer workbook and kept himself occupied for a couple of hours. Perfect compromise on feeling like I nailed quality time together, outdoor time (another mom guilt area - usually I feel like we're bad at that), and yet also got time so that I could get work done and not feel like I was giving him only half attention. (Or nap time. Might have actually been nap time for me.)

So that balance is the goal going forward, supplied by some of the items mentioned in this summer prep post, and I can fit whatever I need for all of the above into my great new tote bag, whether it's pool stuff, a new library haul, or my work laptop. Plus get there in comfy and reasonably not overheated style with easy dresses (shoutout to my friend Katie for sending me a couple of her maternity ones like this cute striped number so I have some options!), and shoes that require no bending over to put on (clutch!). This'll be on repeat as H and I go about our summer weekdays for sure.

Sharing on Style Six.