The Myth of the Perfect Summer Morning

I used to believe in the perfect summer morning.

It looked like 6am silence and oat milk lattes on the back porch, windows thrown wide to catch the cool air before the world stirred. Summer mornings were supposed to be different—more spacious, more golden.

I had it all planned out.

Then I had kids.

Now my summer mornings begin with the baby's loud cry at 6:47am—the same little one who finally settled at 3am after another long night. My preschooler appears moments later, eyes bright with plans for strawberry pancakes while I'm still finding my footing in the day.

Coffee gets made one-handed while bouncing an almost-one-year-old who reaches for everything within sight. The latte becomes whatever's simplest—creamer, sipped between conversations about why winter boots might be the perfect choice for July playground adventures.

There was one morning a few weeks ago when the baby had been up most of the night. By 6:30am, he was crying again, and my daughter was asking why her brother was sad and could we make pancakes shaped like snowmen and why don't babies sleep better anyway?

I stood in the kitchen, baby finally settling against my shoulder, my daughter's arms wrapped around my legs. Morning light streamed through the windows, catching dust motes floating between us.

"Mama, can we have breakfast in the playroom today?" she asked, looking up with impossibly bright eyes. "Like a tea party?"

Not because it made any practical sense, or because I'd planned some special moment. Just because it sounded magical to her four-year-old heart.

So we did.

Mismatched plates and sippy cups carried to the soft rug surrounded by stuffed animals. The baby in my lap, grabbing at everything, while my preschooler arranged her toys in a careful circle and narrated the whole scene. "And now Slothie gets some strawberry, we all share..."

We stayed there longer than usual, my daughter eventually absorbed in an elaborate game while the baby explores. I found myself just sitting, watching the morning light stream through the playroom windows, feeling the softness of the rug beneath me.

Later that day, after naps and snacks and the usual afternoon blur, I found myself thinking back to that morning.

That's when it settled over me, quietly.

The perfect summer mornings aren't the ones you orchestrate. They're the ones that catch you completely unprepared—hair messy from three hours of sleep, coffee going cold, baby drooling on your shoulder while your preschooler discovers a tiny spider and insists you both examine it closely.

They're the mornings when you abandon the plan entirely and just say yes to whatever your children offer you. When breakfast becomes a tea party not because you're being intentional, but because a four-year-old had an idea and you were open enough to follow her lead.

Summer doesn't wait for you to get your routine together. It just keeps unfolding, one interrupted morning at a time, asking only that you show up to whatever version of the day you get.

And sometimes, when you're sitting cross-legged on a soft playroom rug with a baby sleeping against your shoulder and your daughter arranging a whole world around you, the morning light streaming through windows making even the toy-scattered floor look somehow sacred—that one breath of presence is the most honest kind of summer morning you could ask for.