Edge of September

The kids go back to school next week.

Alarm clocks will have to be set.

Underwear will have to be worn.

Several day old tattered t-shirts will no longer make the grade.

We’ll move too quickly for dragonflies to perch on our toes.

I’ll have to share the kids with teachers, soccer coaches and friends.

The yoga and tennis classes I thought I’d so desperately miss will start up again.

“What will you miss most about summer?” I asked Andie.

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My entrepreneurial 10-year-old daughter at “work”!

“Everything,” she said.  The added, “Max and Sam and Hooch.”  Her “clients” from her first summer job.

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I’m going to miss my kids, because I know when we meet again next summer they will have grown and changed and moved another summer closer to the summer when school commitments or real jobs or travel opportunities replace these lazy frog-catching, lemonade-sipping summers.

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Tucker, 5 summers ago!

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So…  I’m gonna wrap up a piece of this summer, put it in my pocket and when I need it most – on one of those inevitable lost homework, no bread for sandwiches, can’t find one shoe, car won’t start mornings – I’ll pull it out and sprinkle it over us like the powered sugar “fairy dust” their granddad sprinkles on their summer pancakes. Then we’ll remember those carefree, barefoot, don’t have to be anywhere-do anything days, and we’ll laugh and smile and breathe and start counting down the days ’til next summer.