Welcome Summer

Whoever decided that summer means lazy days of swimming and sipping lemonade and napping in a hammock should be shot.  Or maybe tied to that hammock and left to sizzle and burn in the hot summer sun. It is nothing short of cruel to bombard us with media images promising rest and warm, sun-heated happiness.  If Memorial Day weekend is any indication, then summer 2010 will be just as hustled, hurried, and harassed as the worst holiday season.

 

Friday was Charlotte’s last day of Kindergarten, so after working four hours, I left by eleven AM to run errands before picking her up at noon.  We celebrated the end of her last day of school by going out to lunch at the same restaurant we went to on her first day of school. Then it was home to unload a backpack full of school supplies, fill in a few pages in a school-years scrapbook (starting with the “Preschool” ones that were still blank….), do some housework, and pick up her brother from daycare.  If we did anything else Friday evening, I have apparently blocked it out or subsequently lost those brain cells somewhere in the mad dash that ensued beginning Saturday.

 

Saturday involved early morning gardening, midday housekeeping, an afternoon trip to Lowes for more gardening supplies, and an evening party at a friend’s house.  It felt like summer.  Mid-July in fact.  According to the car, the parking lot at Lowes was over 100 degrees.  And I felt every single one of them as I loaded up a trunk full of bagged mulch, then had to unload and reload it all when I found the trunk mat was blocking the door latch. My husband (who’d stayed home with napping kids) was kind enough to unload it all and haul it all down the hill to the backyard.  Where it still is.

 

Sunday was spent over the river (and probably through the woods, though you can’t see many trees from the highway) with my husband’s family for church, lunch, playtime, naptime, and a movie (Shrek! Even the three 3-year olds loved it!).  Amazingly, my kids didn’t fall asleep in the car on the ride home.  And therefore didn’t go to bed until almost 10pm.

 

Nor did our youngest sleep in Monday morning.  6:30AM. This kid’s internal alarm clock is more reliable than some electric models.  But maybe it was for the best, because we apparently had an entire Memorial Day weekend worth of activities ready to fit into the one remaining day.  More gardening work for me, mowing the lawn for my husband, grocery shopping, laundry, playtime outside, playtime inside, laundry, swimming at the neighborhood pool (cut short by lightning and thunder), Rock Band on the Wii (with the 3-yo on the drums and the 5-yo singing), more laundry while my husband grilled chicken and I made an apple-blackberry crisp for dessert (and banana bread for today, since the kitchen was already preheated).  The quick storm earlier cooled it off enough for us to eat dinner outside. After dessert and books (Charlotte read one to me), I was ready to be tucked in for the night.