Category: Summer
Thursday, Jun 30, 2011 | Kids, School, Summer |
… of school, of course!
This is the latest that I remember the kids having to go: right until the last day of June. No wonder AppleApple threw her backpack aside and her arms in the air with a whoop of joy!
We said goodbye. Fooey has had the same teacher for her two kindergarten years, and what a loving and caring teacher she has been for my girl, watching her grow and nurturing her all the way along. “She’s half mine, you know,” her teacher said to me, as we said goodbye. AppleApple has also had the same teacher for two years. She wondered, a little bit teary-eyed: “Why is it so much harder saying goodbye to a wonderful teacher after two years than after just one?”
Well, then. Let’s get this summer started. As Albus would say (in truly the sweetest way possible, every morning to me): “Smell ya later, school!”
Sunday, Jun 26, 2011 | Baking, House, Kids, Organizing, Play, Summer |
Yesterday, I got a taste of summer. A whiff. A tingle of this is summer. (See above).
Today, I am getting prepared. There are four more days of school, and then we shall hurtle headlong into the beach, overnight camp, strawberry picking, food preservation, swimming, and a multitude of mini-adventures … such is the hope.
So, I started today in the kitchen (can I return happily to the kitchen after losing all interest this past month? Well, I can try). I baked a batch of bread; didn’t take long, actually. I did dishes. The living-room is moderately tidy. Piles of papers have been sorted and recycled (more remain; and more are on their way home from school, no doubt).
AppleApple helped me make a giant (messy) poster of ideas for summer activities: our categories are Plans (dates for things we’ve already signed up for); Away (ie. zoo, beach, Children’s Museum); and At Home (ie. canning and freezing, making magazines/comics, playing with friends).
Kevin is in the middle of painting us a chalkboard wall: for messages, reminders, planning, and scribbles. Photos to come. (Inspired by this friend).
I am defrosting the freezers. One down, two to go.
And the kids have spent hours together in the backyard, even though it isn’t particularly warm or sunny out. The sidewalk is being chalked. A rung on the climber has been broken. The potatoes are thriving. Wouldn’t it be great to have a treehouse? A trampoline? Another tier of garden beds? Chickens? A dog? I’m looking around and seeing lots of potential.
Wednesday, Jun 15, 2011 | Sick, Summer, Swimming, Writing |
The child not pictured is inside, upstairs, huddled in his bed, too sick even to enjoy unlimited access to the computer. So we aren’t off to swim in a lake, as planned. If I don’t get another chance to use the wetsuit before the race on Sunday, well, so be it. I’ll swim on Sunday. The sun is shining, the sky is bright, the girls talked all the way home from school (and held hands), and the supper menu is enticing. It is based around the chicken stock I’ve been brewing all day: hot and sour soup for those of us so inclined, and miso for everyone else, with pasta salad on the side.
re writing: The last story didn’t get finished today, but it got continued, and that was all I could ask of my weary brain. I’ve noticed myself tending to muck around on these last few writing days and suddenly gain inspiration with seventeen minutes left on the clock (avoidance is not my usual style, but with this story I’ve begun to appreciate the kick-in-the-pants of working under pressure).
Wednesday, Jun 8, 2011 | Kids, Music, Summer, Swimming |
Borrowed wetsuit. Climbing in and zipping up. Even the ten-year-old is impressed with the super-hero get-up. 7:30pm, Monday.
In the lake. Taking the wetsuit for a spin. The water is mucky brown and thick with sediment. The sky and trees, perfect. 7:45, Monday.
At the park for soccer practice. Glad it’s within biking distance. A tree she can climb. Mother reading on picnic blanket only wishes the mosquitos hadn’t found her and told all their friends. 8:15pm, Tuesday.
Piano plus soccer uniform = unplanned post-game down-time. He’s not practicing (lessons are over for the summer); he’s making music. 9pm, Tuesday.
Long evenings are short-lived, in our portion of the hemisphere, and we are filling up the extra light with outdoor activities. Arriving home after 9pm with wide-awake children is taking a toll on my early morning training, and perhaps also on my midday thinking, but I’m going with the pull of the season. And the pull of older children with their own schedules and interests: soccer soccer and more soccer. We plan to head back to the lake this evening, this time with friends and a picnic. The kids can cool off in the water. And I hope to swim farther, this time, be braver, with an extra set of eyes on me. Race day is in less that two weeks: in the same lake pictured above.
Tuesday, Aug 24, 2010 | Summer, Swimming |
Feeling vaguely melancholy; end of summer-ish. Pulled into the driveway this afternoon and noticed fallen leaves on the pavement. noooooooo! But, yes, the days are narrowing ever so slightly. The early morning run happens at the edge of sunrise, not in full light, and nights are cool, almost cold. My sweaters are starting to look comfy and appealing once again. But I’m not done with summer yet!
Witness, these tomatoes picked from our front yard veggie garden–almost exclusively cherry tomatoes, since that’s what we planted. I find the skins a little tough, so Fooey helped me make a recipe from one of her cookbooks, for roasted cherry tomato sauce. Nothing fancy, but it did require slicing each little tomato in half before drizzling with oil and roasting in the oven: Fooey’s job. Nothing makes her happier these days than a job. She is never more cheerful than when she’s been asked to help, and when the job’s done she declares, “That would have been a lot harder without me!”
Often, that is true.
The recipe called for a lot of fuss at the end because it had to be pressed through a sieve to strain all the skins out; only a whiff of roasted tomato remained in the sauce, which we tossed with hot pasta and served with queso duro blando, which I substitute regularly for feta. Albus declared it a bit bland. My kids are used to a chunkier sauce. I am not a sieve-it cook. So I won’t bother to post the recipe.
:::
In other news, I am considering training to complete a triathlon. I am working out a regular training schedule, and I am even learning to swim (kind of critical to the whole triathlon concept). In fact, I think I’ve learned (front crawl, head in water, breathing to the side), though my neck feels a bit stiff after a lot of practice. The technique will need to be finessed, but I feel a sudden understanding for people who love to swim in all waters, even deep cold Canadian lakes … it’s peaceful under there, calm, all noises stilled except for the underwater sounds, and the sound of the body itself, experienced from the inside. I might just become a swimmer at the age of thirty-five. That would be something. I’ve always wanted to learn … and I’m not sure why it took me this long to jump in and try.
Sunday, Aug 15, 2010 | Holidays, Kids, Mothering, Summer, Swimming |
Before and after. I didn’t think she needed a haircut, but she was adamant (everyone else was getting one, you see).
On the other hand, Mama’s hair salon was inspired by these locks, above.After! Now he can see and breathe during swim lessons (that is the hope, anyway.)
No real before/after for AppleApple, because I simply trimmed her ends. And we worked through those dreadlocks that had formed on holiday, due to complete lack of hair-care. This girl is a wild child (for which I love her dearly, though it is my motherly duty to tame her just a wee bit). We were eating out at a restaurant yesterday evening, a stop on the drive home, and in horror Kevin and I watched her devouring clumps of rice with her fingers and sucking soup down the wrong end of the spoon, with hair that suggested we’d captured her in the wild and that our attempts at civilizing her had not been promising.
Before. As if this needs improvement! Yowy.
Well, he can see better after a tiny front trim. But I took one look at those long long long goldilocks curls down his back, and went, nope. Can’t cut those off, can’t even come near them with the scissors.
:::
Yup, we are home from cottaging. Walked through the door and thought, wow, we should go away more often because this place looks GREAT! Totally forgot we’d gotten the place cleaned during our absence, and that it wasn’t by magic that the counters shone and there were no crumbs anywhere.The holiday lethargy never really abated. Kevin felt it too. We rode right into holiday mode and one outing a day was enough to attempt. Which was awesome.
Coming home means looking around with fresh eyes and making to-do lists and discovering energy anew for new projects and familiar routines. Top to-do list is: things we must do before summer’s out! (One thing I can now cross off: cut the kids’ hair).
Three weeks of summer vacation remain. Three sweet weeks.
One thing on our future hopes and plans list is hiking together, now that everyone can do it independently. (Biking together, with everyone on his or her own bicycle is still a few years away, but we’re looking forward to that, too).
We went for a hike around Jones’ Falls locks, on the Rideau Canal, which is very near where Kevin’s family lives. And now we’re considering hiking the Bruce Trail, bit by bit, as a family activity on weekends.While at the cottage, the kids organized and performed a concert, now a tradition in its third (or even fourth??) year. Each year they’ve become more independent, culminating this year in complete artistic autonomy, no adult input whatsoever.
“My name is Albus, and I am the piano artist. My name is AppleApple and I am the singer. My name is Fooey, and I am the dancer. CJ is a dancer too.”
They opened with a solo by AppleApple, Kevin accompanying on the guitar, of “Whisky in the Jar.” Albus played “Axel F” on the portable piano, plus “Wavin’ Flag” (beautifully sung by AppleApple), plus a too-brief invention to which Fooey danced like a dolphin. Then Fooey danced “freestyle” accompanied by a boomboxing Albus (and the rest of us were invited to sing along with any song we’d like). They finished with “Down by the Bay,” a perennial favourite, calling for audience participation. The photos which included all of them were blurred in one way or another: it’s rare that I can capture all of them holding perfectly still at the same time.I had a moment yesterday, walking with them all, when I felt overwhelmed by fortune: look at these children, aren’t we fortunate? I said to Kevin. I can think of nothing I’ve done to deserve such riches, and appreciation seems the least that I can do in acknowledgment and gratitude. Yes, we are often overwhelmed by things other than fortune, such as noise and chaos and mess and complaints and fighting; but heaven help me if I whine too loudly about those incidentals, and lose sight of the beauty and creative energy that surrounds me RIGHT NOW.
