Summer

Summer is the busiest time of year for me.  My work never lets up.  I am preparing the students for a national board exam and this is my busy season.  The girls are out of school and it seems that I am constantly trying to juggle their schedule and keep them busy with camps and nannies and swimming and activities.  I am jealous that they get to spend time at home.  What I wouldn't give for a little time at home in the craft room.  But when the weekend comes we don't stay home, we pack the ice chest and swim suits and off we go. 

We spend the long days of summer on our boat, jumping off the back, seeing who can make the bigger splash.  We let our skin get sticky hot from the Oklahoma heat and then jump in the cold lake and scream from the shock of the still cool June waters.  We watch the sun set while grilling brats on the grill, so hungry from swimming, eating on paper plates and dripping in wet swimsuits. We smell like sunscreen and wet hair and Gatorade and strawberries.  Last night we named four goats on the shore of an island on our lake.  They bleated at us as we talked to them from just off shore.  Emma Jane and Lucy were calling them by name and it was another perfect memory I want to remember.  Those two little girls on the bow of the boat, the sun setting on the water behind us, the goats talking to them and those precious little imaginations talking back to the goats.  As we pulled back into the marina and our slip, my darling daughters whispering to each other made me want to stop time.  Freeze this moment.  Make it stay summer, just past sunset...twilight...ten years and almost 5 years old.  Two little girls who still are each others best friend, playmate, conspirator, confidant. They still love coming to the boat and to the lake with their parents.

Lucy said to me this morning that she doesn't want to turn five.  She wants to stay four.  I asked her why.  She said that she thought being four was pretty great and that she was afraid that it couldn't get any better.  Is that strange to have the presence of mind at four years old to think your life is pretty awesome?