Some more about Summer

6.5 days until summer (un)officially begins here at the R. house. That means only 6.5 days until I can return to my natural state of sleeping until 9am and staying in my pajamas until at least 10:30. This does not mean that our summer days are not busy, is just means that busy-ness in the house must not occur before 10:30. Don't ask me why, those are just The. Rules.
We will get a sweet, sweet taste of what I hope the rest of the summer holds for us tomorrow since Ace's school has Beach Day and Julia, Lucy, and I have invited ourselves along. Our picnic lunch is already packed and I spent the afternoon at the store stocking up on even more beach toys. This poses a small problem because last summer our beach toy collection outgrew my beach bag and I had to move them to a tub. The tub is already hard enough to carry onto the beach while balancing Lucy on one arm and piling the cooler, the towels, and the beach chair on top of the bigger childrens' heads to get to the sand. But now, I have more toys than will even fit in the tub. I'm not sure what to do. Logic says I could just leave some toys behind but logic does not have to listen to four children whine that they don't have their yellow sand sifter and can we drive back home and get it because the beach is 100 percent boring without it. I'll have to figure something else out.
That last sentence reminded me that Ace now likes to complain that he is 100 percent bored. Or 100 percent hungry. Or he loves the movie 100 percent. I'm not sure where he picked that up or what he thinks it means but it melts me a little every time he says it.
Another thing that melts me is the fact that in 6.5 days Hayley will be a third grader. I have memories of third grade being a strange year. I remember feeling  left behind by some of my friends that year. They talked about things that didn't makes sense to me yet, like how cute boys were and who they like- liked. I had one friend who would spend the entire recess recapping the Nightmare on Elm Street movies in gory detail for all of us who weren't allowed to watch them yet and teaching us jumprope rhymes that included the word ass. I remember half of me wanted to go back to swinging and playing foursquare and half of me wanted to be cool enough to say ass without whispering and watch R rated movies. I spent a lot of time in third grade feeling uncool and not even knowing what cool was supposed to feel like. Everybody warns you about teenage angst but that is the thing, everybody warns you. By the time I was a teenager I  pretty much  figured that everyone else was feeling just as awkward as I was. When you are 8, you don't even know it's coming. I'm not sure if I'm ready to face third grade again, this time as a parent.
But, between now and then, we have Summer. I'm definitely ready for Summer.