Summer Snapshots

A major work commitment for the summer is finished. Which is good, because camp is almost over and I’ll have two little kids with me every minute until September. Which is also good, because they’re great kids, and I’m psyched to have fun with them instead of doing the multi-tasking thing. I’m done with reading Bowling Alone on a bench next to swim practice and looking up occasionally to give my son the thumbs up, so that he’s not swimming alone.

There have already been some great little moments to the summer. Nothing to build an essay around, but just little good things. I’ve buried them under the flap, because I assume that no one but my husband gives a crap about this stuff. Still, it’s good to write all this stuff down.

#1. When we went camping, we showed the kids how to make s’mores. We found good sticks for the marshmellows and impaled them onto the end. We showed Jonah how to put the stick into the center of the fire and allow the marshmellow to catch fire. But just for a minute. Then we waved it around for a second as it made a “wwwhaah wwwhaah” sound and tried to put out the flame. When the marshmellow was suitably blackened, we pulled it off the stick. Crusty on the outside and oozing in the inside. Perfect.

#2 Summer means a later bedtime. Until recently, I put the kids to sleep at 7:00; they needed to sleep and I had to work. But they’re getting bigger, the sun stays out much later, and the other kids from the block were playing right outside their window. A couple of times, we caught Jonah and Ian hanging out of the window in their PJs talking with the other kids. Get back to bed, kids! I don’t care what Dylan has to say. Go to bed.

So, instead of getting them ready for bed right after dinner, I let them ride their scooters outside for a while. At 6:50, we went to the corner to look for Steve who gets off the bus in town around that time. And there he was. In his banker’s blue shirt and messenger bag. Sauntering down Broadway absorbed in Cicero. One of the reasons I love my husband is that he can walk and read at the same time. The boys rode their scooters right up to him, before he looked up and saw them there. A small boy was hoisted on his shoulders, and the large one embraced his leg. Oh Daddy, you know what happened today?

#3 On our camping trip, we spent some time at a rusty playground from the 60s dominated by a 20 foot rocket slide. While Jonah climbed to the top of the rocket slide, Steve and Ian sat on the rusty roundabout.

Excessive litigation has resulted in the outlawing of roundabouts from modern playgrounds, along with seesaws. Too bad. They’re damn fun.

Steve and Ian sat on the roundabout and Steve gently pushed them with his feet. Ian shyly looked up at him with a huge grin and said, This is fun. Not bad for a boy who couldn’t pronounce his own name three months ago.

This is the summer that Ian learned to talk.