Favorite Summer Moments

As we say goodbye this week to carefree, minimally scheduled summer days and hello to highly organized, maximally scheduled school days, I am reflecting on some of my favorite summer moments:

• There were a couple of times when we had all the kidlets, or almost all the kidlets in the car heading to the beach, and the car ride was hilarious. It was a true ruckus. Absolute chaos. These people are nuts. I laughed so hard I wanted to throw up. With such a spread out group of siblings, there won’t be very many times when they are all in the car together, and I find it rather priceless when it happens.
• The Banana decided this was the summer of painting my toenails, because she was tired of my unfashionable feet in sandals. The other day I was picking up a CSA fruit box, and another random lady complimented my bright purple, shiny toenails and was so happy for me!
• Watching little feet tromp through puddles with exuberant joy was pretty great!
• The first two thirds of the summer was quite wet and full of mosquitos. Really, there were just so many mosquitos, especially when you got anywhere near a forest. It was hard because it is summer and the weather is beautiful, and there are so many great adventures to take a toddler into the forest! Every time we would try something fun in nature Peanut Maximus would come back to the car covered in so many itchy, nasty bites that it looked like he had a terrible case of hives or something. However, August has been amazing! The mosquitos are at least resting during the middle of the day. Peanut Maximus has been going on all sorts of adventures in the woods. The other day he was playing and playing at the Hartley nature scape, and I was sitting on a bench watching. What a setting! Tall pines! Bright blue sky! Wildflowers! A mud kitchen! It doesn’t get much better!
• Peanut Maximus is a maniac on his balance bike! At the beginning of the summer he was afraid to even sit on it, but now I can barely keep up! He zips down the sidewalk! We’ve been going to Hartley to ride in the forest, and he goes and goes for more than a mile! He goes down slopes, around curves, over rocks, down ramps, across brides, all at a break neck speed! It’s pretty adorable because his bike is so tiny and he’s so small too!
• One teaching day a few weeks ago one of my small summer piano students came to lessons and was so excited to show me her new “hair invention,” which was two magnatiles holding half her hair into sort of a ponytail. I loved it so much! I had never thought to make hair accessories out of magnates. Kids are so creative!
• Sitting on a sun-warmed, wave worn smooth boulder at the beach with a cool breeze in my face was lovely.
• Getting to watch my kidlets up close at the rowing regatta in the middle of summer was really fun. And all the rowing stories they told me all summer were so entertaining.
• Fresh eggs gifted to me were delicious!