Hi everyone! I’m just going to write some stuff down here, not edit or make the words pretty or tie it up nice and neat at the end or that kind of thing, so go ahead right now and lower your expectations. Okay, just a little lower. There.
Now.
First, thanks so much to all y’all (Texas to English translation: everyone) who noticed my lengthy absence and sent notes and emails inquiring as to my whereabouts and well-being. That makes my day.
I am well, thank you very much, and I am here. I’ve been keeping myself busy enjoying this last summer with my favorite six-year-old before 1st grade begins. I have this feeling that we are about to step through a door, into another time and space, and I don’t want to forget what it was like to be here, where it is so wonderfully bright and secure and easy. There’s going to be no coming back and visiting this little hollow in time and that’s a shame.

2006, the summer of three. Oh how I’d like to book a week’s vacation back to three. I’d pay just about anything for a little more of that.
What exactly have we been doing this summer? We have been swimming. A lot. Last year, Sean was still not so crazy about the water, still wanted his water wings and preferred the baby pool, which kinda made me a little crazy. I swam when I was three! How dare he not be like me?! This year, he is a fish. Which confirms my theory on parenting: Don’t over-manage — they will walk/talk/potty train/swim/read when they are darn good and ready. Chill out and enjoy your kid exactly where they are. Everyone will be much happier that way.
We also do some school work every day. There. Now you you can tell your kids that you are in fact not the meanest mom ever, Antique Mommy is. Yes, I know, it’s summer, but here’s my deal: I don’t care. Because I am just mean like that. After Little Dude completes the math and phonics worksheets I give him (which he secretly enjoys, I’m quite sure) and a little reading, he gets 30 minutes of approved-TV time or Angry Birds time when the sun is nigh and land of Texas miserable. If he does it without complaining, he gets 40 minutes. If he tells me I’m the prettiest mom in town, he gets 45 minutes.
What else? We play a lot of Legos, we cook, me make costumes, we make stuff out of boxes, we read, we swim, we make it up as we go along and then we start over the next day. Boring to some, perhaps, but it’s all the ingredients we need for a magical last summer before we walk through the door to 1st grade, maybe one that we’ll remember and long to visit again some day.

What are you doing with your summer?