deep summer is when laziness finds respectability. sam keen.

We didn’t go mini-golfing! We didn’t get to the beach enough. What about that bike ride to ice cream? Or the lemonade stand! We didn’t do a lemonade stand!! This is the time of year when this chorus starts screaming through my head. The things we didn’t do. The time a-tickin’ that’s now run out. The thief named School that’s got my buddy for several hours of our day. The summer is new, and you make your goals, endless opportunities! The sky is the limit. Make your lists, kids! We’ll check it twice!

Let’s change this narrative. We fully embraced days of sun for hours, sprinklers and popsicles, dirty feet and baths every night. We lolled about on the lake, without a care in the world except for what was for lunch. We sat on the couch and read James and the Giant Peach, laughed at the caterpillar and his many boots. We went for bike rides, and scooter rides, and have a happy strip of photos from the Ocean City boardwalk. We spent mornings together, slow moving, coffee and pancakes.

And as for School. Parker went off with more confidence than ever before. And me, tears in my eyes that were finally allowed to make themselves known once he was out of my sight. I’m never so self-deprecating as I am this moment, “Ha, yes, this is always hard for me!” I say to the teachers who look on. I watched the clock, the minutes tick by as the day passed, and waited eagerly for him at the door when the day was over. There he is! My eyes fill up again. This time, behind my sunglasses. Big hugs and how was your day?! “Great!” He says. Oh my heart was happy. He told us as much as he could muster, light and airy all the while. What lunch was like, and what they did as soon as he sat at his desk for the first time. “We were coloring. And while we were coloring, I really missed you.” When we got home I sat him on the trashcan in the driveway for a long hug. The kind of hug that really matters. In that moment, I saw him as a little baby, standing in his crib in a white onesie, thighs full of rolls. “Parker. I am so, so happy you’re at school and just loving it. I missed you though.” And, for the first time ever, almost an obligatory “I missed you too,” lest he let me think he doesn’t need me entirely. It almost made me laugh.

So, here we go. Another year. A secure boy who’s marching happily into his future, praise the Lord, and his adoring Mom who’s just trying to hang on, but also let him fly.