Bottomless Bucket List

My sons and I created an ambitious summer bucket list on their last day of school in May. Caught up in their enthusiasm, my heart swelled at the thought of lazy mornings, baseball games, Vacation Bible School, riding water slides, visits to the library, and all of us snuggled up on the porch for movie nights.

As an avid photographer and memory preserver, I decided to take a picture to represent each day of their summer. I started a private Instagram account and uploaded a daily photo. I numbered each accordingly – Day 1, Day 27, and so forth – and wrote a caption. The plan is to create a book of these photos for each of us, so we’ll always remember the summer when they were 8 and 6.

There were 68 days of summer break for my boys, including weekends. As my grid of photographs expanded, a colorful collage splashed with ice cream cones and sun-kissed cheeks, my heart sank. The days were going by so quickly. I felt a rush of emotion as the end of summer loomed, so sad to think of sending my babies back to school, teary-eyed as I imagined how much bigger they’ll be next summer. I often wrap my arms around them and say, “I hope I always remember you just as you are this very second.” I want to soak up every bit of today before tomorrow comes.

Much as we want to see our kids grow and thrive, the proverbial ticking clock is omnipresent, whether you’re literally counting the days on Instagram or not, and it stings. There’s an axiom that went viral a while back, a reminder to parents that we have just 18 summers with our children, so we should make the most of each one. While it’s a good reminder to live in the moment with our kids, I hate thinking about finality with parenting. I don’t want to number our days or years together. I don’t want to imagine a finish line with my boys. I picture a road that stretches beyond the horizon, endless experiences and memories awaiting.

We checked almost everything on our bucket list this summer. We never made it to the beach, but we went on an epic road trip, continuing the quest we began last summer to visit all 30 MLB ballparks. We didn’t make it to the splatter art place, but the boys spent hours and hours playing with Legos and soldier figurines. We never made it to the museum in the city to see the dinosaur skeletons, but we visited our local water park every single week.

While I feel sentimental about summer ending and school beginning, I wouldn’t change a thing about our 68 days of summer. We took our time, played plenty of days by ear, laughed, bickered, and stuck to one another like glue. I savored every second with my babies and we missed out on nothing. I refuse to feel disappointment over what we didn’t get to. Instead, I choose anticipation because those to-do’s still lay ahead. Yes, some days may be long, and the years may be short, babies don’t keep, and so on, but God willing, there’s so much more for us. There are more adventures to chase and memories to make, and no date of completion is required. I hope we never check every box on our list. I hope there’s always another whimsy to pursue, game to play, vacation to dream up, another photo book to create. The kids will grow and so can the bucket list we share with them.

We’ll miss toting them around on our backs like sherpas and watching them hold hands as they jump into the pool, but time has proven that each new phase holds so much goodness. There is more. Here’s to keeping an active bucket list with our children and maybe letting a thing or two linger until next summer. May an incomplete list be a comfort, a bit of hope, a reminder that there is always something to look forward to.