In the book I've been reading to G, the main character is a composer who spends his days at his piano writing music.  The author describes how his process involves listening outside of himself, and also listening INside himself.  G was asking what that meant.  So we tried it together:  we were sitting on my bed and had the windows open-and we stopped speaking, listened to the sounds and then described them to each other: the wind rustling the trees, birds tweeting, the traffic sounds cascading up the canyon.  Listening to the inside of ourselves was a little more difficult to explain-I said it was being very quiet, closing your eyes and listening to your thoughts as they come up.  For me-lately-what is coming up are just checklists: get so and so here or there, call, email, text, pick up, don't forget.  All that minutia (while certainly important to the functioning of our family) is definitely not what the author was talking about.  Listening to yourself on a deeper level means confronting things that are difficult, but also things that are joyful.  When I spend my time running around, or just at my computer looking at celebrity gossip and filler (FB, news, emails) I am not actively engaged in my life in a meaningful way.  And unfortunately this seems to be how I do summer.  I look forward to my time "off"-I'm always so thankful that school comes to a close-in theory it's more laid back, less run around, and more "fun".  But the reality is that the weird schedule throws me off, I don't end up taking care of myself, we still don't have the time to do the "fun stuff," the kids have too much togetherness and fight, and the amount of screen time we all spend makes me cranky.