beach day

Recently, I met my daughters in town so that we could do a bit more shopping for youngest daughter's new apartment. Granddaughter had been picked up from school, and here she is, all dressed up because the theme of the day had been 'beach day'.

As oldest daughter talked about her week, the tight scheduling and the number of things she had to keep in mind or accomplish, I had an acute memory-attack of the vicious pressure I always felt back when I was at that stage in my life myself: three young children in three different schools, working full time, spouse, parents, the kids' after-school activities. And I remembered to be grateful that that stage of my life is over! I keep wondering if there is not a better way to handle that stage in our lives! It seems that at that stage most people my daughters' ages are trying to balance an awful lot: new home, new marriage/relationships, young child(ren) starting school and other activities, launching careers and/or continuing education. It's madness. Any one of these events would be considered a huge stressor on its own, never mind combined with everything else.

But isn't she cute!!