Summer's End

To use the old joke, I just flew in from the coast, and boy are my arms tired. Okay, so we drove, and we came home a couple of days ago, but I am exhausted. It's the pack up all your bullshit, relax, pack up all your bullshit kind of tired that only comes with a vacation with small children. Sippy cups and pull ups and strollers and car seats and 'entertainment bags' for the ride and snacks and meal plans and laundry.

Laundry, laundry, laundry.

But for all the work - sitting by the oceans for hours a day, watching my seababies frolic, made it well worth it. The fact that I read two and one-half books in a week (The Fourth Hand by John Irving, Postcards by Annie Proulx and the 2006 anthology of O. Henry award winners - which starts with a story from Edward P. Jones who wrote The Known World, one of the best books, ever.) was damned near staggering in it's awesomeness.

I did not write, but I thought, and thought of some stories I'd like to tell down the road.

I did not write, because I left you in such capable hands. Thank you again to my wonderful guest bloggers, who had little instruction other than 'tell me a story'. They were pretty good stories, weren't they?

This is the last week of summer, packed with open houses and school shopping and trying to adjust to a schedule that doesn't include staying up too late and eating too many sweets.

I like staying up late, and I like too many sweets.

A week from today, I will send Katie off to middle school and Julia off to kindergarten, and then Henry and I will sit around and wonder what we're supposed to do with ourselves until three o'clock. Over the next few weeks, we will once again find ourselves knee deep in soccer and piano and plays and homework. We'll trade in our flip flops for more sensible kicks, and rotate the bathing suits out and the hoodies in.

We'll get busy with every day, then holidays, then the humdrum of winter will box us in until spring begs us to stretch our frozen white toes into the afternoon sun. We'll rush and tumble through April and May with an eye on June. Then we'll forget schedules and sleep in and sunburn and sweat, for those glorious hundred days.

Summer.