Almost There

They are ready for summer!

Summer is almost here and as I’m enjoying my lunch outside one might think it is already summer as the warm sunny weather pushes everyone else to seek a chair in the sun too. We all need some vitamin D desperately, and we all are equally turning our faces toward the light seeking those golden rays of sun, after living in the gloominess like mushrooms for several months. Suddenly we have neighbors again, and our back alley is filled with playing kids in their swimmers enjoying after school popsicles and sprinklers. After so many months of rain and quiet it’s enthralling to see our block wake up.

The school year is down to the alphabet countdown, with my mornings filled with career days, pajamas, favorite hats and crazy hair. A, B, C, D, E as in exercise… 22 days to go before lazy days of summer.

What our summer will look like this year, I don’t quite know yet. Last year it was filled with back to back camps, and at least I felt like the kids never got a summer but just an extended school year. Yes, they had fun at the camps, and there were field trips to the beaches and parks, but they still had to get out of bed and ready to go every single weekday, and in the afternoon, they were waiting like cattle for someone to pick them up from the outdoor play area. But we had no choice as neither one of us had a job that would stretch that much, meaning enough to allow them the privilege of lazy mornings and boredom that I associate with my own childhood summer days. There was nothing to do, and that was the beauty of it.

So, this year, there will be no camps. It will mean some juggling between our jobs, and working off the park bench or sitting on the dock whilst they swim. Yes, I will be meeting with my clients, and I am on call on Tuesdays, and there are my trainings and everything else. For some of it, I will just haul them with me, and when I can’t, I’m lucky to have the other grownup that can. Maybe this will drive us crazy, and a year from now, we will all equally be waiting for the camps to begin, but for now we are cautiously excited to see how this will roll out.

I’m looking forward to sitting by the fire pit roasting marshmallows with my neighborhood family. I cannot wait to go swimming together, as last year we went twice during their 70 plus days of summer vacation. I am waiting for the last week of school, the parties and craziness, and the concert on the very last day. I will be standing there with parents, teachers and children to wave the school buses good bye as they leave the school honking their horns. And then, then we will drive to Redmond to celebrate the end of school year with ice cream.