Summer Fun

I've been charging my computer up about once a week. I barely open it.

Luckily I'm not working for anyone else this summer so there's really no guilt and shuffling of priorities and the unending guilt that I feel when I can't do something with my kids because I'm working. 

I'm pretty happy with how the summer has been going, surprisingly. Of course what is this? Week three?  

The weather this summer so far (KNOCK ON WOOD) has been lovely compared to last year's aggravating Festival Of Rain. We've been entertaining friends again (last week 3 times!), something we kind of stopped doing at some point over the winter. 

Yesterday we spent the day out at Cass Lake with friends and their kids. Max, Maddie and Logan all went tubing on our friend's boat, for the first times. One of the only experiences I have had and Logan hasn't. On the drive home I said to Logan, "I swear I feel like we're up north." 

If you're not from Michigan you should know that Up North is like Situational Prozac or maybe Enviromental Prozac. 

My favorite thing about summer vacations up north with the kids is the nights after playing in the water all day. Around 4 or 5 you start considering scheduling showers for all the adults and kids in the house.

Everyone's skin smells like summer and feels warm to the touch...but you're not uncomfortably hot. You feel that excellent water logged relaxation in your whole body. You sit at a restaurant, usually with several families and eat a good dinner and by 9 you're ready to crawl into bed with a good book because tomorrow you're going to get up and hang out in the water all day again.

After our afternoon on the water we stopped for dinner in town with the kids and I realized I want almost all of our summer to feel like we're on vacation up north. 

That's what I've been trying to do. Staying away from the computer for the most part, spending 3-5 hours at the pool, going to the movies, eating dinner on our deck, sitting on the upper deck with Logan having an evening cocktail watching the bats fly overhead at dusk. 

Also driving this view of a relaxed, easy summer is the realization that I think I'm ready for a job out of my house. (Lucy? Is not happy to hear this.) July 14th I have my long awaited interview. 

This could very well be the last summer I have to just hang out with the kids every day in the summer. We are all well aware that acting as my children's Number One Source Of Entertainment doesn't fit me very well. But I'm smart enough to realize that all this time with them, all this time to fill, all this flexibility, is something I will miss when it's gone. 

Now it's true I still bristle when I take Maddie to the pool and she rolls her eyes and says, "LAME". Or I tell her to call a friend and she says, "No, I'll just sit here all day bored.*"

*In so many words.

The nice thing is, on the good days of this summer I think to myself, "I just want to absorb all this so I can remember it forever, we're so lucky to have this time together." 

And on the more annoying days I think to myself, "Next summer I'll be working out of the house and Logan will have to be here some of the time and they'll have to go to day camp and they'll have to have a sitter who will keep them entertained."

Somehow it makes everything feel more tolerable. It's okay, you can say it, I'm losing my edge.