Summer vacation's almost gone...

Pretty soon I'll have to wake the kids up in the morning so they can get ready for school.  As it stands now they usually rise around 11 AM.  They may get dressed by one or two in the afternoon.  I give them a call around nine or ten and they still beg to play a little bit longer.  This summer has truly been a 'minimal schedule' stretch.  I'll also be getting to work and will have to re-learn how to confine myself to a grownup schedule.

I remember summers as a child.  Our side yard sloped down to a ditch and was half the length of a football field.  Day and night were only divided by light and dark and meals were only governed by the gnaw in our stomachs.  June and July lent themselves to chains of clover and dandelions smeared on our faces.  As they sun disappeared in the west we grabbed our canning jars in our sweaty little palms and ran up and down the yard with our hands cupped, carefully depositing the fireflies into the jar.

I'm not sure if my mind jumps to exaggeration when remembering or if the memory of childhood just seems bigger, but I rarely see fireflies lighting up the sky like Christmas lights.  The cicada and cricket sounds seem muted and the clover and dandelions have gone the way of weed and feed.  Everything seemed brighter and louder and bigger as a child.  I think our ability to see the world and all of it's wonders starts to dim in our teenage years and slowly we peer through the cataracts of old age. 

I almost hate the idea of bedtimes and alarm clocks as much as my kids do.  I think someone should want to pay me a salary for taking walks, picking flowers and laying on my hammock listening to crickets as I gaze up at the stars.  It sounds like a job description that I could through myself into wholeheartedly.