school's out!

School's wrapping up if you hadn't noticed.

Friends on facebook, moms and teachers, fellow bloggers ...

all so ready for summer.

One friend said, "I'm tired of being the homework Nazi."

How I used to relate to that one!

I remember my own last days of school as well as my children's.

They tumbled off the bus for the last time, a paper grocery sack under one arm.

It held the broken pencils, half erasers, and crumpled spelling tests from a now-clean desk back at school. On the other arm, a scuffed-up book bag and maybe a droopy marigold planted in a Dixie cup.

The last day of school was always hot

and my children's faces were flushed with damp bangs clinging to their foreheads.

But across that face was the biggest grin of the year.

A smile that said "summer, here I come!"

"I can't wait to go to the pool,

 play baseball, ride bikes, play hockey in the street when mom's not looking,

sell lemonade, play City (my kids can tell you about it),

go to church or scout camp, then forget all the lessons and fight with my brother,

sleep in the backyard, stay up late enough to see fireflies,

play bickerball in the front yard, read books in the hammock,

and GO TO FIRESIDE!" (Our favorite place in northern Michigan.)

Oh, I know that the paradigm of having summers off doesn't fit our non-agricultural lives anymore.

But I can't imagine kids missing out on the lazy days at home,

where sandwiches and mom's homemade popsicles made for a fun lunch on the porch,

or a few weeks with siblings made you wish for school to start. 

Yay, summer!

two brothers off to Boy Scout camp