Yesterday marked the official midpoint of our summer.
With six weeks down and six weeks left to go, I feel like we’ve finally hit our groove with the different rhythm that summer brings – isn’t that always the way of it? Nathan has settled down and is learning how to have unstructured days, Sarah Kate has found ways to not be “bored” and I have accepted that I need to accomplish less and relax more.
June didn’t turn out the way I expected, of course. Vacation Bible school was a bust for Nathan – again – and therefore it was a bust for Sarah Kate, as well, because she opted not to finish out her volunteer assignment without him. For the past few weeks, photos from VBS have hung in the vestibule at our parish, and it both encourages and pains me to see his little face on the wall with one of the teenage volunteers, Marie.
I’m encouraged because I know that there are some people who love him and were happy that he was there – people like Marie who declared him her “favorite” and the teenage boys who were assigned to his class who made a point of seeking him out at a swim meet.
The week after the failed VBS attempt, Sarah Kate went to camp at the Alabama School of Math and Science – “nerd camp” as we like to call it. The school is just across the bay in Mobile, and when she got back she was fired up about applying to go to high school there…right up until the point that she learned that it’s a residential campus for ALL students, even the local ones. She’s not ready to leave us yet, it seems.
While she was away, Nathan spent a couple of days with my dad and stepmom, and a few more with my mom and stepdad.
I made a long list of Things To Accomplish while they were both gone, and then promptly discarded it on the first day, choosing instead to binge season 2 of Bloodline and do a lot of reading. Do I feel guilty about it? Not a bit. Sometimes moms need to breathe when we have the chance.
Sarah Kate is still trying to push her way through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Back in the day, the rule was she couldn’t watch the next movie until she had read the previous book, but that went out the window when we decided to go to Universal Studios for her birthday. Her biggest obstacle was the Half-Blood Prince, which she had started and stopped and started again probably a dozen times. She finally finished it this summer, though, and was able to move on to the last book. If she finishes it, we’ll go to the midnight release party of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the end of the month.
Mr. Andi shocked me just before the start of summer by selling his boat, pulling out the old canoe to paddle he and the kids (and Gabi), and getting a new kayak for me. The Pungo wasn’t the only new boating, addition, however. It was eventually followed by a Swifty for Sarah Kate and a Big Tuna for Mr. Andi, Nathan, and Gabi.
We took Sarah Kate down to the bay to practice before her first real paddle outing. She did pretty well, but she wasn’t too keen on paddling in circles by herself while we watched. She’d also taken a nasty spill a couple of days before at the pool during warmups, so she had a little trouble figuring out how to sit without pain to her knee.
The next morning, she slept in while the boys, Gabi, and I headed to the bay for a paddle.
On July 4th, the whole family went paddling on a local creek. The water was smoother, her knee was much improved, and everyone was happy and tired – the good kind of tired.
Later this month, there’s a kayak racing event in our area, and we’ve registered as a family to do the “eco-tour” – it’s basically the paddling equivalent of the fun runs you typically find paired with 5K races.
Later that afternoon, we went to a friend’s house. She and her family live on the bay, have a pool, and can see multiple cities’ fireworks displays from their pier. She and several other friends of mine have been having coffee together once a week for about six years – the group was the brainchild of one woman who wanted to form a mom’s group and told a few to invite a few people, who invited more people, and so on.
A lot of women came and went in the early days, but eventually we gelled into what is now known as the “Cawfee Mates”. Our original group of a dozen women has since lost two members to out-of-state moves, but we remain friends with them to this day. Every mom needs a group of friends like the Cawfee Mates.
Nathan stayed in the pool for the better part of five hours straight, with Sarah Kate keeping a close eye on him for a lot of the time, and my friend Dawn’s husband playing with him a good bit of the rest of the time. Sarah Kate’s friend since kindergarten, Ben, was there, as were a lot of the other “Cawfee Minis” – though they aren’t so mini anymore. When we started meeting they were all in elementary school; several will be high schoolers this year.
School starts on August 22, and Sarah Kate is doing something different this year: virtual school. Our school system has had this option for high schoolers for several years now, but for the first time is now offering it for eighth grade. She’ll take her tests on the virtual school campus (which, fortunately, isn’t far from our house) and do the rest of her work online. She’ll be able to continue to swim for her base school’s team, and she’ll even go there to participate in band, which makes it sort of a hybrid between public school and homeschooling. Basically, she’ll be able to do everything she was doing before, but she won’t have to navigate a giant building.
Sarah Kate is a Potterhead? Me too.
YES!