Summer!!!

Summer is coming!!! It is right around the corner!!! I cannot wait!

I know, I know, some of you are thinking that it started June 21st. (The day I am actually writing this). I am on my deck, the sun is shining, everything is vibrant green, the air is warm, the birds are singing and I am worrying about whether my phone is turned on so I hear the message to go get my kid from school with all the things that have accumulated in his locker over the year...

It may be officially summer on the calendar, but in my world, it is not. For me, summer begins the last day of school, or when the last exam is written.

I have always been a little resentful of "the bell" and how it rules our lives from September to June.

We live right across from the Elementary school that my kids attended. After our eldest finished her first year at school, I was shocked when we woke up the day after school was done to hear the bell ring at the school. It marked the start of school, recess, lunch and the end of the day. I was more shocked at my inner reaction to it. I wanted no reminders of the driving demands of the bell. I couldn't stand the sound of it!!

The next day, it was same thing!!

I quickly got on the phone to the school office and asked if "that bell" was going to going to ring all summer. I was pleasant, perhaps a little frenzied. I was so worried they might leave it to ring all summer.  Sure enough, the schedule to turn it off had been missed. They said they would take care of it.


I woke up the next morning, true to their word, no bell.

Whew!!

The very same thing happened the next year. Finally by the end of grade two, the situation was rectified and the bell was off on time.

As a kid I remember staring out the window of my classroom, a little piece of me dying behind my desk when the sun was shining, a breeze was blowing through the trees and the green field of buttercups was beckoning my bare feet to come, run, play and be free.

I still feel it. The kids need help clawing their way to the finish line and I just want to ditch it all and run to the lake.

I cannot even imagine what their teachers are feeling. Seriously, if you are in this noble vocation, my hat is tipped, you have my respect and deepest appreciation!!!

I recognize the look in my kids eyes also, can you see it? They just can't even!

They do not want to deal. They do not feel they have any more effort to offer. They are feeling it too.

June is a tough one for us. Our tanks are running dry, we want to hang a "gone fishing" sign up on our door and leave no contact number.

To survive:

• The house is kept to a lesser standard of cleanliness.
• You will find us enjoying one another's company or grabbing a moment away on the deck. Too bad if the dishes need doing!!!
• Some of us will run to the lake whenever we can
• The grass will grow a little longer
• If the weather isn't lake-worthy, we are out for a walk or a hike.

We are just trying to make it to the dawg days of summer. No bell, no "have to do this, or have to do that". We like the freedom of a less intense schedule. The freedom to play. Oh, how we LOVE summer!!

It's almost here, it is just around the corner!! I think we can make it.

I am ready to kick off my shoes and run barefoot, how about you?