Summer So Far

We're on week three of unscheduled days and so far, so good, I guess.  We've had more than a few moments (read:  hours) of Parenting with Love and Logic scripts gone awry, time-outs that degenerated into Annie, held captive in her room, whipping a zippered sweater at her bedroom door for the satisfying "clank" sound it makes, yelling "Jemma's poopy!" while Jemma holds my leg and insists, "I Not Poopy!"  We're all tired at the end of the day in a way we weren't just a month or two ago.

And yet we're getting into a routine, too.  Mornings, I push them in the jogger and sometimes stop at Starbucks after my run.  We play at the park for a spontaneous hour here or there, have a picnic in the front yard, bake a chocolate cake for no good reason.  We run through the sprinkler or take a scooter ride (Annie is unbelievably quick on her Razor).  We reapply sunscreen.  We feed the tadpoles.  We grill.  We eat popsicles and wait for Jason to get home.  I am seduced by the late-night light and stay up way too late, reading Dandelion Wine like I do every year in June.

We've been gone the last four weekends in a row, and we're headed up north this weekend.  So the suitcase sits, open, on our bedroom floor, and anything I packed for last weekend that didn't get dirty remains inside, on call for the next trip.  I do laundry constantly, and there is always a swimsuit hanging to dry over the edge of the tub.  The Red Wings announcer's voice floats out from the living room.  The herbs in our garden are tall.  It's really, truly summer.

"It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed.  Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow.  You had only to rise, lean from your widow, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer."

-Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury