Snippets of Summer – The Reluctant Grownup

To honor Lachlan and Grandfather, we decided to plant a tree in our yard. The boys and I went to a garden center and after much perusing, selected a plum tree, along with a few bushes to plant around it and our willow. The boys were thrilled to observe the singularly novel act of Daddy driving our vehicle across the backyard grass to the fence line opposite the driveway, where we backed the car in close and then pulled out various landscaping bits and bobs from the trunk. The Professor and I labored to pull up much of the landscaping around the existing willow, extend the bed, line it with large cement blocks, dig holes for the tree and bushes, etc. etc. The boys flitted about, largely in our way, and then we ‘let’ them all 3 of them get in the back of the Pilot, with the gate down but the back window flipped up, radio blaring. They were basically caged in while we finished in peace. Jack, sipping a juice box as he surveyed his father and I in our labor, declared it the ‘best day ever’ and also said he just loved doing hard work.’

In a surprise last-minute visit, my sister and her husband – freshly deposited in their brand new Texas home, which is much closer to us than their former Ohio home – came on over to Alabama for the weekend. They waded with the boys in our backyard wading pool, took them to a splash pad, went with us to a Boy Scout end-of-year shrimp boil and a birthday part at Chuck E. Cheese . . . they were good sports, and we loved having them!

We threw Liam a fifth birthday party – an afternoon splash party in our backyard. Jack didn’t get a party this year, so we let him invite a friend or two to Liam’s. I have a few of the actual party itself, but they have other people’s kids in them, and I feel leery of posting . . . so you get mostly decorations. We had a slip and slide, a wading pool, a water table, a sprinkler, and buckets full of water and watering cans and little buckets and that sort of thing. The kids had a blast, the parents ate nothing, and so we had party snacks to eat up for days.

While at Nana’s, my dad had to have unexpected foot surgery in a hurry, so I ended up taking a day off so Mom could take him to the hospital (I normally work out of my firm’s local office up here). Instead of trying to work with three kids in my hair, I just decided to make up the time on the weekend, and take the day completely off (checking email of course, always always). And I took them berry picking. I have literally wanted to take these kids berry picking for three years, but never been able to go. When we finally got this chance, it was perfect. It was overcast and breezy, dry (no mud), and the place was delightful, as were the proprietors. Craig loves blueberries – he’ll eat a full clamshell in one sitting. So when he twigged that the berries actually grew on bushes, and he could reach them and pick them and eat as many as his chubby dimpled hands could grab – well, let’s say I paid for a whole extra pound when we were done. Let’s also say that the diaper situation since then has been, in a word, vile. But that’s the price you pay for an engaged, happy one year old at the berry picking farm.