The hardest part of the summer for our family isn't mornings or bedtimes. It's the middle of the day.

Mornings still feel easy — coffee, independent play while they’re fresh and rested, maybe a walk before it gets hot. Evenings have a rhythm: dinner, bath, books, bed. But that stretch from about 2pm to 6pm between naps and dinner? That's where summer lives or dies.

Ours involves some combination of water, snacks, movement, and at least one moment where I genuinely cannot figure out how to entertain both boys at the same time with the energy I have available. The 4-year-old would choose to watch tv all afternoon, the 2-year-old wants to ride his tractor around in the blazing heat until he realizes how miserable it is, and both of them aren’t left with much patience for one another.

What I'm slowly learning is that the middle of the day doesn't need to be completely engineered. It just needs something to anchor it. A walk. The splash pad for an hour. A bike ride somewhere we've never turned off before. But also Half a popsicle before dinner because it's already 88 degrees and sometimes rules should bend.

The important thing is having some type of plan for movement and getting out, even if you go off track at some point. Daniel and I purposefully planned a very low-key last weekend as we’re gearing up for a big trip this week. But by mid-afternoon when we had no plans for the day, everyone was a little bit exhausted and miserable. Daniel and I talked about how with our boys (and specifically at their ages), it would probably be better for our family if we had at least one thing in mind for the day. We 100% don’t believe in entertaining our kids all day and want to push them to play independently and creatively when possible, but there’s definitely something to getting boys at this age out of the house.

Summer with little kids is a lot, but with the right amount of anchors in the day mixed with some flexibility, we can make it something beautiful for the whole family.