That Good Part~

We all know that dating before marriage is a time set aside for us to get to know one another, to see if this other person is the right one to spend our lives with. Once we’ve made that decision—i.e. accepted the ring and wearing the fluffy dress for a day—we tend to move on to other areas of focus. We have bills to pay, careers to build, and eventually diapers, and lawns and church callings in need of our time. Dating, which was once our only opportunity to be together, often drops off the radar screen once we see each other every day for a year or two. It’s not hard to figure out why it dwindles, it’s pretty obvious. The question is, why is dating again worthwhile to us now?

I’m not the girl I was when my husband proposed, anymore than he is that same boy he was when he popped the biggest question either of us would ask or answer in our lives. As the years have gone by, he has become primarily responsible for supporting our family, which means he spends anywhere from 50-80 hours a week away from home; the very place my roles keep me. Sometimes it feels as if our lives are more different than they are the same. His thoughts encompass this whole big world, and most of my thoughts center around household appliances. I worry that I sometimes sit our marriage on a chair and say “Don’t move till I get back.” Then I take off after kids and my writing and making a home. However, expecting my marriage to do as I said and not “move” is as unrealistic as telling my kids to stop picking their nose in public. It’s not gunna happen. The marriage relationship is a living, breathing thing, and just like kids and pets and plants, it needs attention. Keeping the courtship alive—which is really only learning about our partner and having a good time together—is how we keep those bindings strong. Enter the concept of dating your spouse—one solution to the question of “We’re married, now what?”

I think dating complications come in three forms: Time, money, and interest.

Money: With mortgages, new tires, groceries, and co-pays, its no wonder there isn’t always enough to go around. Even if we can find the time, can we afford to enjoy it or will time spent with one another equate that the power bill being late again?

*Trade babysitting with another family in need of a break. You both get the chance to get away without having to pay for a sitter. Not only do you both save money, but the kids get to play together which often means that leaving them goes over with less tears and “Mommy don’t leave me!”

*Restaurants give coupons out to draw your business, so use them. Sunday’s paper almost always has buy one get one free or $10 off entrées. Look around and see what you can find discounts for.

*Look for free events in your area—community events, street fairs, hiking, biking, or taking a picnic to the park. Many cities have begun doing free concerts in the summer time, or free community plays. Check your local paper for details.

*Attend the temple together. Sessions run all hours of the day, five days a week. Keep in mind that the meals served in the temple cafeteria are also reasonably priced and good quality.

*Stay home. Put the kids to bed early and watch a movie together, maybe make a special dessert the kids wouldn’t appreciate anyway.

Time: Sometimes there’s barely time to brush your teeth let alone spend a whole evening together. But often this phase of life is when we need couple time more than ever.

*A friend of mine worked out of state for quite some time. Because it was difficult to get back home on a regular basis, he and his wife would have phone dates on a nearly daily basis. They would read to one another, or watch a TV show. They had cell phones with free minutes between their phones and spent almost an hour together every day. Ironically, when he moved back home he found it harder to spend so much ‘time’ with his wife.

*If weekends are too hard, consider weeknight dates. If there’s a karate-baseball-dance-gymnastic-free night, use that for your date night. Not only does this keep your weekends free, but the restaurants and movie theatres aren’t as crowded during the week.

*Breakfast and Lunch are necessary meals as well. Can you meet for lunch once a week, or enjoy a breakfast together after the kids go to school. You’ll eat these meals anyway, why not do it together?

*If once a week is just not doable, shoot for once a month—maybe even going somewhere overnight in order to get the time together. Again, consider trading child care with a friend that also needs a get away.

Interest: Maybe it’s not money and time that’s the issue, but sheer boredom that makes it easy to ignore date-night. Dinner and a movie can wear thin if you date regularly but find yourself doing the same old thing each week. Spice it up by thinking outside the popcorn box.

*Have you considered learning to golf, dance, paint or play racquetball together? Learning new things is always fun, doing it with your better half can create infinite possibilities of being together.

*Take turns choosing the night’s activities. This forces you to put some thought into it, and come up with new ideas. Sometimes all you need is a little extra focus to make the most out of your time together.

*Sometimes less is more. Maybe you’ve burnt yourself out on doing “stuff” and all you need is each other. A couple in my neighborhood takes a walk every single day, rain or shine. I imagine they both look forward to that time very much, even if in the beginning it felt awkward.

The point is that we didn’t get married so that we could then become so busy with other things that we grow apart, but that is the inevitable destination if we don’t make the time to be together. We all know that faith without works is dead; similarly, marriage without time together, just the two of you, is stagnant and vulnerable.

Satan wants nothing more than our marriage to fail—therefore affecting untold generations that will follow. But he’s crafty and has been doing this for a long time so he knows that all he needs to do is distract us from each other long enough to let the foundation of our marriage crumble without our notice. Never forget that in the beginning it was just the two of you. Don’t give that up without a fight.

As a teenager, we had a daily devotional in my seminary class. The students took turns each day and the devotional usually consisted of a quote, song, or story that was inspiring. One day someone shared the quote “Be careful how you live, you might be the only Book of Mormon someone ever reads.” Being the rebellious girl that I was back then I thought this was ridiculous. We’re supposed to live our life for someone else? We’re supposed to make all our decisions for their benefit? What about “Being yourself” and “Judge ye not” and “Don’t worry about what people think of you.”

I have to admit that even though I’m all grown up now, and not the rebel I used to be, I still struggle with this. Isn’t it enough that I’m trying to do my best and raise my kids right? Isn’t it enough that I’m trying to fulfill my calling and keep up my yard, and feed my kids three relatively healthy meals a day. The extra pressure of worrying about other people watching what I’m doing, and then performing for them, is not a welcome thought. I don’t want the responsibility, thank you, I’ve got enough without it.

And then, I hear my daughter yelling at my son. I head down the stairs and get blasted with the realization that she sounds just like me. I call a car on the freeway “Stupid” and my daughter says, “We can say that word now?” Here I’ve been so worried about people outside my home watching me, and I’ve forgotten that I’ve got these four little people whose brains are still growing. And I’m their main teacher. Yikes! Maybe I’m not the only Book of Mormon they will ever read (after all, I tie them to the kitchen chairs now and then so that they’ll stay in the same room while I read them scriptures), but I’m certainly the biggest, loudest, and bossiest one they’ll ever stumble across.

They’re my children, they are with me every . . . single . . . day. They have no choice but to watch and listen to me all the time. And I remember the quote “If you don’t practice what you preach they won’t know how to practice either.” Okay, I don’t think that’s a real quote—I just made it up, but it works, don’t you think? If I want them to learn good things, I need to live that way. This makes sense to me and hits me right between the eyes. It’s not about worrying what people think of me, it’s about teaching my kids goodness. I can’t balk at that since I want them to leave my home with good tools with which to build their adult lives.

I then look past my children and consider their friends. I’m not about to start a scripture study group every time they come over to play, but do I set a tone that makes them want to come back? Do I do the simple things that make them feel welcome, that show interest in them enough that they feel liked and appreciated? Is my house presentable enough to be comfortable for them to come to? If the answer is no, and they don’t feel at ease in my home, then my children aren’t going to want to be here either, which goes against the goodness I’m trying to give them. Okay, so I need to set a good tone not only for my kids, but also for their friends. I can’t balk at that either, because I want my home to be a place my kids and their friends want to be. Sure, it drives me crazy to have even more little bodies running around, but I still want it. I can do this; the motivations make sense.

And then, there are those friend’s parents. Do they feel comfortable letting their kids come to my house? Do they think they will be safe; that they are well supervised? I live in Utah which, for good and bad, is chuck-full of Mormons. Many inactive or non-members don’t have positive feelings toward the church. Some of them have been offended by “good” members of the church in the past. Will their experience with me be a good one, or a bad one? For those families that are members of the church, do they trust that I enforce the same standards in my home that they enforce at theirs? I do want them to feel secure with their child being friends with my child, which means I need to behave in a way that will invite those impressions.

Now, I can get my back (rancor?) up about this one, about the fact that I’m nothing more than a performing monkey, trying to put on a show so people will like me and like my church. But then I’m forced to ask myself if that’s what I’m trying to do. Maybe the real question is: Is it a show?

The fact is that my lifestyle isn’t a show in the context of putting on an appearance—or at least it shouldn’t be. I do value a presentable home; I do value time, a positive attitude and God-centered living. I value things like charity and kindness, compassion and having a good time. I should be living it because I’m converted, because I value these things. Without thinking about anyone else, I know that when I am living the kind of life taught about in church, I feel better. Not only do I feel better about what other people think of me, but I feel better about what I think of me.

We don’t have to make a Book of Mormon costume and wave a sign on a street corner, we simply need to live what we believe, keep the covenants we’ve made. And then, when people—be it our children, their friends, their parents or the gals at work—see us, they see good things. When they learn we’re members of the LDS church, they see good things in the church. When and if the day comes where they are given the chance, or seek out the chance, to learn more about the Gospel, they have us to reference as something positive that spoke well of an entire religion.

And beyond that, the Lord is watching. We know that His Grace is sufficient for us, but only after we have done all we can do. Does that mean we have to be perfect? Get real! Perfection is impossible in mortality, but we can move forward, a little bit further every single day. It’s through baby steps that we gain eternal life. It’s through baby steps that other people find God, and we just might be one of those steps. Will we take them closer to Him, or further away?

I’m a reader. It hasn’t always been that way, but for the last twenty years I have read, and read, and read. Most of the books I’ve read are fiction, though I have a nice collection of non-fiction that sits on my shelves and makes me feel smart. I love books. I love to be sucked into a world I’ll never live in. I love learning about cultures, and people, and places I will never see.

In high-school I went through a Harlequin phase. I learned a lot about Vikings . . . and some subjects I didn’t really need to know so much about at the age of 17. I then moved on to Regency Romance novels set in 1900 England. These offered the storyline and romance I loved, but because it was a Victorian society, the morals were closer to my own. However, my library had about 1000 and I read them all in about two years. At that point I began widening my reading scope. I started on biographies, memoirs, crime novels, literary fiction, and, of course, a romance here and there. But in time I found myself relating to many characters in these national market novels less and less. Though the discrepancies between their values and my values hadn’t always bothered me, it did now. I became tired of the swearing, of the immorality, of the graphic scenes—and yet, I’m a reader. I read.

That was when I rediscovered LDS fiction. I’d read it before—every Weyland and Yorganson I could find at my library as a teenager. I had enjoyed the stories, but somehow forgot to look for more as I grew older. Rediscovering this was exactly what I needed. It helped that there were a lot more authors and a lot more books available this time around as well. I had found a place where my values were on equal footing with the characters I read about. I was not only entertained, but edified by the time spent with my nose in a book. For me, discovering this wasn’t important only to my reading. After reading all the LDS fiction I could get my hands on, I began writing one of my own.

Today, the LDS book market is bigger, better, and offers more variety than ever. Hundreds of titles are published every year, covering nearly every genre: Fantasy, mystery, suspense, romance, romantic suspense, children’s, young adult, science fiction, biography, self-help, doctrinal. In addition to these categories mirrored in the national market, there are also anthologies of LDS themes short stories, talks and article compilations, and books to help with specific church callings. There is truly an entire market within the overall book market—and the books are written for us; members of the church. The language in these books are not offensive, the sensuality and violence is kept within boundaries we can be comfortable with. And yet, real life issues are addressed.

In D&C 88:118 it says “See ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith” and President Hinckley has said “Turn off the TV and open a good book.” Those good books are out there, waiting to be discovered.

However, without fail, every time I have this discussion with a group of people, someone will raise there hand and say that they read an LDS fiction novel way back when and it was either A) poorly written or B) unrealistic. Unfortunately, not every book published in the LDS market is as well done as it should be—not every book published in the national market is either. But that does not discount that many books are excellent. Many books compete with national titles in terms of writing, style, and story line. If you fall into the category of having been turned off by LDS fiction in the past, please, give it another chance. Like the market, the writer’s are growing—the entire industry is shifting toward a more sophisticated and savvy audience. In the last few years I have been amazed at the incredible books that have been published for the LDS market. Demand has risen the bar and will continue to do so as more readers find a place for themselves in the LDS market.

Here’s where it gets really exciting. In spring 2007 author Robison Wells (Wake me When it’s Over and The Counterfeit, Covenant Communications) had the idea to create an award for LDS genre fiction. Awards are given in many national fiction markets and he felt the LDS market had grown and developed to the point where we should be rewarding those writers that have honed their craft and achieved pen-to-paper excellence. He brainstormed this idea with some other authors and they chose the title of The Whitney Award in honor of Orson Whitney who once said “There will yet be Miltons and Shakespeares among us.”

The Whitney is a reader driven award, meaning it’s readers that make the initial nominations. Though focused on the LDS market, it includes all books written by LDS authors as well. Once a title has received five nominations, it is considered an official nominee. Each official nominee is then read by a committee made up of seven people. Those seven people choose the top five titles in each category, at which point bookstores, publishers, reviewers and other industry professionals vote for the winner. I firmly believe that The Whitney will become a tool that brings the entire industry together in a way that’s never been done before. We all want LDS fiction to put it’s best foot forward, and The Whitney award is a huge step in that direction.

So, if you haven’t read LDS fiction, give it a chance. If you read it and didn’t like it, look at the new titles and try it again. And, if you like what you find, be sure and nominate 2007 titles for The Whitney by going to www.whitneyaward.com.

You can also find a listing of all eligible titles at LDSpublisher's blog.

I love Fall, it is by far my favorite season. Yes, a big part of that is because the kids are back in school, but it’s more than that. I love the crisp air, the days getting shorter, the fall flowers sending summer away with their grand finale of Chrysanthemum bursts and a final rose or two. I love the changing leaves, and when they start to flutter to the ground, I just want to stand beneath the limbs and let them rain all over me. I also love to bottle peaches and pickles. It’s something I despised as a child, and yet just as my mother told me, there really is no substitute for bottled peaches in January. Being up to my elbows in peach fuzz and dill weed makes it impossible to ignore the Law of the Harvest in action.

I live in a rural community where, in the summer and early fall, the highway is lined with fruit stands selling everything from cherries in June, to apricots in July and peaches, pears, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, corn and melons in August and September. Driving by the orchards every day as kids and errands pull me to and fro, watching the corn push through the dirt in spring and end up seven feet tall, is an amazing thing to behold. I can pull into a fruit stand any time between June and September and walk out with fresh fruits and vegetables probably picked that morning. And yet, I’ve never grown corn or peppers or melons—at least not successfully. According to the law of the harvest, I shouldn’t necessarily be reaping from the efforts of someone else, yet I do. How come?

As I’ve thought of this I’ve realized first off that I pay for those things I get, so in that sense I am sewing my own resources, but I’ve also realized that the law of the harvest, and how we live it, is about much more than just us. For example, my husband can’t cook more than scrambled eggs. When I’m out of town and the cooking falls to him, he serves up a mean roast beef sandwich that the kids say tastes suspiciously like Arby’s. But because I can cook—and do cook at least once or twice a week—he benefits. Because I do laundry, my kids have clean clothes . . . most of the time. Because my daughter can play the piano, I get to enjoy music that I could never produce from my own fingers, and because my husband works hard every day, I have the money to pay for those piano lessons and buy some peaches when they are in season. Each of us have sewn our own seeds, tended to our own gardens, and yet we are all blessed by the efforts of others.

When I take this theory out of my own home and look at my community, it’s even more staggering. The city council members help take care of the roads I drive on, the parks my kids play in, and they regulate the growth taking place in our town. At Enrichment last week a sister in our ward taught us how to make a rag rug. I’m a quarter of the way finished and loving it. At church yesterday I taught Gospel Doctrine, then went to Relief Society and was taught by someone else. The circle of our giving to others of our own harvest and reaping the harvest they themselves have tended is mind boggling when I take the time to look around.

And inevitably, when this time of year comes around I wish I had worked harder on my own vegetable garden. When I see those bursting red tomatoes, and the buttery corn I think—why didn’t I work harder back in the spring? It doesn’t seem like it would have been that difficult if I’d really envisioned the harvest. I’m lucky to have the harvests of other’s to enjoy, but I’d love to have more of my own. And yet, even this pushes me forward. I’m already deciding what I will plant next spring—all because of seeing another’s bounty.

There are many days when I feel as if I’m spinning my wheels; washing the same dishes I washed yesterday, getting a grass stain out of the same pair of jeans I scoured last week. It feels as if no one notices, and yet this time of year I truly become overwhelmed by the talents and gifts of others, the way they bless my life. As the fields go fallow for the winter, as the last of the squash is steaming on the stove, I reflect on all that has come, all that has been done, and the preparation already taking place for next year. It’s an amazing cycle, this harvest we sew in a million different ways. How blessed I am to reap from another’s garden—be it a perfectly brilliant red pepper, or the road outside my house being grated in hopes of saving my shocks. It’s really the circle of salvation, giving and receiving again and again. All because we sew, and tend, and reap our own harvest. How many lives have we touched this way? How many lives have touched us?

Do you ever look up the Hymn in Sacrament meeting and find yourself shifting in your seat? Do titles like “Love at Home” and “Home can be a Heaven on Earth” ever sound like a question rather than a statement? I love my family, they are my number one . . . and two and three, four, five and six. I would do anything for them, and most of the time I feel like I’m doing just that—anything and everything. But there is not necessarily beauty all around or peace and plenty abiding sweetly when the day to day exchanges build up. Let’s face it, you put any six people in a few thousand square feet and you’re asking for trouble. And yet, we’re a family, we’ve made eternal promises, we’re in this for the long haul and frequent flier miles only get us away for so long.

Through fifteen years of living amid this phenomenon we call a family, I’ve stumbled on a few irrevocable truths—newly mopped floors are begging to be spilled on, it doesn’t matter how many pairs of shoes you buy a four year old, you’ll only be able to find one of each on Sunday morning, and sometimes absence really does make the heart grow fonder. I’m not talking about boarding school (though if you have a reference . . . ) I’m talking about just creating, and respecting a little distance.

Rather than always forcing our kids to play with each other, or to always include their younger brother when their friends come over, find a way for kids to have a time-out now and then. Take your ten year old on a walk, alone, or shut the door when your daughter’s on the phone. Let your son ride bikes with his friends, without someone tagging along, and in the process you can help your children enjoy their own company.

In our house, we have implemented (or tried to anyway) a night time routine that has all the kids in their own room by a certain time each night. They can read, or study, or just listen to music, but they do it by themselves. Not only does this give them some peace and quiet, but my husband and I manage to have a conversation from time to time as well. A friend of mine, whose children share a room, has one night a week where one or the other child stays in the kitchen with her, while the other one gets the room to himself. She’s found, as have I, that creating a time for them to be apart, allows them to enjoy one another’s company a little more when they are together. It also allows them to pursue their own interests and make their own decisions on how they spend their time. When tempers are running especially high, I can often look back and see that quite frankly the kids with the greatest conflict between them have not had enough distance.

It’s also been recommended that husbands and wives have a date night, a time to get away, be a couple, remember what life was like before there was more than just the two of you. Having this time apart is not only important for mom and dad, but it’s an essential element of our children’s development to know that the world does not crumble when mom and dad are not home. It helps them identify with their own selves, and not be too dependant on mom and dad for their emotional well being.

And beyond our children having their own time, and us finding couple time with our special someone, the theory is not lost on us. I grew up in a large family, being alone almost never happened. When I graduated high-school and got my own apartment, having so much time all by myself was strange and a little scary. For the first time in my life, I missed my family, and as a result I went home and paid more attention to those relationships. As the years have passed I’ve come to love my alone time, crave it. When I make the time to be by myself, doing my own thing instead of multi-tasking fifteen family things, I find myself looking forward to the time when I’m with the kids, or husband, again. When that happens, we have more to talk about and we’re not running on overload.

Unity is something found in many different ways. Having family time, sharing ideas and values and goals is certainly the necessary element, but sometimes, an hour apart helps us to better appreciate what we have, who we are, and look forward to the forever moments we share every day.

Pencils—check. Notebooks—check. Lunch money, backpack, and new pants—check, check, check. Oh yeah, and a tank of gas every three days. Why? Because being a mom of school age children means that we will spend an average of 64 minutes a day driving, covering an average of 29 miles and making five separate trips. This is according to the NPTS and The Americans’ Use of Time Project conducted in 2001. And that’s only the actual drive time, it doesn’t factor in the waiting in between—time none of us have to spare, and yet we find a way to work it in because we want to give our children opportunities that either a) blessed our lives when we were children or b) were something we always wanted to do and for whatever reason didn’t.

A couple years ago, when I had three children enrolled all over the city, I asked myself a question I’ve become quite good at: how can I make this work for me? Instead of being annoyed and time-crunched, how can I use this car time to my advantage? Since writing is my passion, I invested in portable word processor, called an Alphasmart, and managed to write most of a novel over the time spent behind the wheel that year—not while driving, of course, but while waiting to drive to the next event. If writing’s not your thing, here are some other ideas I came up with when the book was done:

*Make a list. On any given day I have half a dozen places I need to stop at: the grocery store, the library, the drycleaner, the DMV, the bank, etc. If I don’t write it down, I’ll forget it. I keep a small notebook in my purse (when I haven’t lost it in the piles of my kitchen) and before I leave, I jot down the places I need to stop so that my time out is as efficient as possible and I don’t have to make a separate trip for the milk and eggs later on.
*Scripture study. Do you, like so many of us, struggle to find the time to read your scriptures? Keep a set in your car and read while you’re waiting. This also works with church magazines and lesson manuals.
*Reading. So many moms I know once loved to read and somewhere along the way had to trade it in for the hundred and five other things we need to get done in a day. Go to your library and check out their audio books. You can listen while you drive and while you wait. Or get a good paperback, or magazine.
*Phone calls. When I’m home, it’s nearly impossible for me to carry on an actual conversation. But on my cell phone, outside the gymnastics studio, I can catch up on those phone calls I’ve been meaning to get to for days.
*Exercise. How long is Janey’s piano—thirty minutes? Lace up your shoes before you leave the house and take along a stop watch. Walk until the practice is half over, then turn around and come back. Take an MP3 player with you, or just listen to the sounds of the neighborhood. If there are other kids with you in the car, drive to a local park or elementary school. They can play while you walk the perimeter.
*Sleep. Crank the seat back, lock the doors and close your eyes. It’s amazing what ten minutes can do to rejuvenate your day and where else will you find ten minutes?

But, one additional point to consider as you find a way to make your time as efficient as possible: how much is too much? I once watched an episode of Oprah where a mom who spent nearly every afternoon driving her kids to and fro, was home-bound because of the rain. After a couple hours just spent at home her child turned to her and asked “Is this what peace feels like?” Most of us didn’t have five different activities in a week, and we turned out okay. Be realistic as you decide what things your child really needs to be their best self; talk with them about it and decide together those things that will be the most beneficial. Then both of you can use your time as constructively as possible.

Outside of funky swimsuit induced tan lines, permanent popsicle stains on half their clothes, and a too-late bedtime—what will your kids take with them when the bell rings on that first day of school?

No, I’m not talking about notebooks and crayons, I’m talking about summer memories. When they write the inevitable essay about “what they did this summer”, what will set it apart from the one they wrote last year? Or the year before that, or the year before that one? What memory will stand out? If you’re drawing a blank, they probably will too. But have no fear, there is a solution! What you need is a summer memory, a trail marker to be buried in this summer of their life. In order for it to stand apart, it needs to be something different, something new—something they will not soon forget. And no, you don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars, you don’t need to clear an entire week on your calendar, or stay up until midnight five nights in a row to set the stage. Creating summer memories is easier than you think.

Think back to your own childhood, your own summers. What things stand out to you? What do you remember the most? For me, those memories include the summer I was eight years old and Dad built a tree house, which was really only a platform ten feet up but seemed like a grand adventure to us. I also remember the year mom and dad put up a tent in the backyard and let us sleep out there every night for two weeks.

With my own kids there are shining moments as well. A few years ago we took an hour and filmed our rendition of “The Three Bears.” I narrated from behind the camera, coaching the kids in between scenes on what they should do next. We had no costumes or sets outside of the homemade bear headbands I made out of a construction paper, and we didn’t do any retakes. It truly took us one hour to make our fifteen minute video. Now (five years later) we all collapse into laughter when we watch it. Last year we went on a two day trip with a friend of mine to a town in the middle of nowhere to see a land art project done back in the seventies. We took our own food, and stayed in my friend’s cabin. It was a completely new and different experience and something the kids and I have reminisced about ever since. Those are both examples of things that won’t necessarily happen again, but they don’t need to because the memory will live on—and I have the video and pictures to prove it.

Some examples of a memory for your family could be, building something together. It can be big, like a tree house; it can be small like a bird feeder they get to paint themselves. Perhaps a child-size picnic table, or a bike ramp. Maybe the memory you want to make for the kids is going to see a national monument or a park in your area that the kids haven’t been to. I’ve heard of people who choose a mileage goal, maybe twenty-five, or fifty, or sixty-three miles from home, then they simply drive until their odometer reaches that destination, at which point they have two more miles to find something to do in that area (pack a picnic if you’re not going to be close to a city). If your kids are older, maybe you can arrange for a rock climbing lesson, or learn to canoe across a lake. This is not a one-size-fits-all-families kind of moment, it’s a memory for your family, something that will stand out in their minds because it isn’t the typical activity.

In order to help create a summer memory for your children, consider the five following aspects:
1— Go back to your own childhood and pull out those things you remember. Choosing something you have positive feelings about will help drive your own passion toward the project. The kids will pick up on that enthusiasm and the entire experience will be enriched because of it.

2—Have it be something you can document. Whether through pictures, journal accounts, video camera, or hand-drawn recreations, be sure to keep a record of the experience you create. This not only allows your children to look back on the experience, but it gives you proof of what an awesome mom you really are. We all need that verification from time to time. When they say “We never do anything fun,” you get to pull out the pictures and relive the moment all over again.

3—Keep it within your abilities, both financially and time wise. If you make this experience too big, or too expensive, you’re setting yourself up not only for failure or disappointment, but you’ll be hesitant to try something next summer. That’s not what we want, so consider your resources and plan accordingly.

4—Involve your children in preparation as much as possible and remember that anticipation is half the fun. If you take a picnic, let them help pack the car and make the lunches. If you choose to make a movie, let them help choose the script or the costumes. Yes, that means things take twice as long, but their efforts increase their investment in the event itself and further cement the memory of it in their mind.

5—During the moment itself, be positive, let loose and have a good time. Our kids have plenty of experience with the chore-mom, and the go-to-bed mom, and the be-quiet-mom, and of course we still need to encourage responsible behavior. But allow yourself to have a good time, and get yourself in at least one of those pictures so that they all know you were a part of the event.

In addition to a summer memory, there will still be other summer fun to be had. Traditional things like a visit to the local amusement park, swimming lessons and family reunions will still take place and bond you together as a family. But amid all that, you can be the creator behind something different, something tangible, a memory that can last a lifetime, a memory that twenty years from now, when their kids ask them what they did when they were little, they can pull out this shining moment and relay it to their own children.
Believe it or not, summer is almost over, school starts in just a few more weeks and with it, that essay. What will they write about?