The Boys of Summer

I love summer. We don't have quite the affair going that we did in years of old. I'll confess that it is harder to court my lazy days buddy while pulling a 40 hour work week. But, back in the hay days of being a stay at home mom, I reveled in the ringing of the final bell, knowing my two punkin' heads would soon be back home with me.

Hello slow summer mornings, flip flops, plaid shorts, cereal for dinner, afternoons by the pool, movie festivals of an evening, and hello ice cream weather. There is nothing grander than the luxurious indulgence of taking in all that is summer and savoring it, in a fashion akin to the slow sweet melt of Rocky Road on your tongue. 

I think the absolute hardest part, without a doubt, of going to work outside of the home has been the relinquishment of my summers with the boys. Trading days for dollars was something I kind of needed to step up and do, and it has been my choice, but it has never been easy. 

As I look back at these summer photos, I can tell you exactly where we were without reading the captioning. We would rotate our ice cream outings between Baskin Robbins, Cold Stone, and Marble Slab, each of us having our favorite. This night, it was Marble Slab on North Garland Avenue. We sat outside at a Marble Slab patio table on the evening before the first day of school. 

We kind of had that tradition - going out for a decadent ice cream cone in the near twilight hours of the last day of summer. The boys in this photo are on the eve of entering 6th and 7th grade...and I did not know at the time these photos were taken that this was not only my last day of summer with them, but my last summer with them. About 30 days after this photo op, I would find a full-time job across town and forever shift the shape of our family.

I will forever be thankful for the thirteen years that I was able to be a stay at home mom. What a hard gift to unwrap! I loved being home with them and we had so many fun times, albeit hard, busy times. I released them to kindergarten reluctantly - and every year thereafter the first day of school would find me bereft. I think going out for ice cream was as much for me as for them. Thirteen years of being a stay at home mom - and then seven summers bookending the school years that happened on my stay at home mom watch. It all seems like a lifetime ago.

We tore up our summers. Wore them out. Ate them up. I would cram as much into them as possible, somewhat resembling the cramming into the cone all of the sugary goodness. I soaked in each moment of every sweet summer. And I relished spending time with these two punkin heads, the boys of summer.

Sweet Summer ~ Ice Cream Traditions ~ August 2007