We Get 18 Summers With Our Kids

When the kids were really little, I remember coming across this saying…

We get 18 summers with our kids.

or

There are only 18 summers in childhood.

Although I’m guilty of wishing a few long and tiring days away over the years, that saying has always stayed with me.  

When your kids are young, the years and summers stretch out ahead of you and those 18 summers feel like they’ll last forever.  Your time with your kids seems endless.  Not only that, they are happy to go with you anywhere, anytime.  A walk is exciting.  A trip to the neighbourhood splash pad is fantastic.  A day at Port Stanley beach followed by Shaw’s ice cream?  That’s childhood gold!

18 summers of childhood

What I knew then, but hadn’t yet felt in my heart, was just how fast 18 summers flies by.  

A colleague told me once though.  We were talking at the photocopier one workday when my kids were small and I was feeling particularly tired and depleted.  Her children were older at the time and she said, “the days are long but the years are short.”  She was so right.

So the little kid days are over, the teenage years are here, and the numbers are fewer.

2.5 more summers
2 more spring breaks
2 more volleyball seasons
0 elementary school Christmas concerts

Yes, we’re running out of spring breaks and lazy summers together and I’ll miss hearing their little voices on stage singing Christmas carols out of tune.  However, I remind myself that new things will come along to take the place of school trips and championship games.  There will always be a lifetime of…

Thanksgivings & Christmases
BBQs & Birthday Parties
& Memories yet to be determined

And who’s to say I can’t trap the kids in the car with us for 24 hours on a road trip to Florida one day in the future when the teen years have passed.  Could we fly?  Maybe.  But I’m not going to pass up the good stuff that comes from jumping in an over-packed car and enjoying the best moments that often happen when you are trying to pass the time. 

So although it makes me a little sad, and I’m already nostalgic for things that haven’t yet come to an end, I will always be thankful for these 18 summers of childhood with my kids.  I’m just not sure how it all happened so fast.  In the meantime, no kid is ever too old for a trip to the beach and some ice cream.  I think I’ll go pack the car.

Happy summer. KJ 🙂

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