Summer days gone by

I'm lying in bed, watching NatGeo's "The 90's: The Last Great Decade?", and I'm thinking. Reminiscing. Remembering summers of the 90's when my kids were growing. You know how we adults are always saying how we miss holidays when our kids were small and what fun Christmases were and Easters with little ones running all around, making noise, making a mess? Well, I miss summertime with my children.

We are fortunate enough to have lived in a quiet, older neighborhood within walking distance of our village park and swimming pool. When I say 'walking distance', I mean I can see the big kid baseball diamond and the diving board of the pool from my front yard. It's that close. When my kids were young, in those summers of the late 1990's, I waited tables at a local restaurant to supplement our income and could basically choose my hours. So, in the summer, when the oldest child could handle cereal bowls for the younger three, I'd work the early shift and be home by 11am, which meant the middle two were likely still sleeping. I'd round them all up, feed them lunch, wait the obligatory 30 minutes past mealtime and we'd walk down the street to the pool.

A pool pass for all six of us had already been purchased, back in the spring, so one of the kids could sign us in, I'd carry the cooler full of juice boxes and cheese balls for snack time and we'd settle in for a good four hours of sun and fun.

I really miss all that. I miss the shout of the nine year old as he executed a perfect cannonball to impress his dudes. I miss the vanity of the thirteen year old who 'just washed my hair and I'm not ruining it'. I miss chatting, comparing recipes and yes, gossiping with their friends' moms, most of whom I'd gone to school with myself. I miss the four and six year-olds falling asleep on their Little Mermaid and Lion King beach towels after playing Marco Polo for a solid 45 minutes. And I miss those grownup moments of solitude during rest periods when adults could get in the pool for a solid 15 minutes without fear of getting splashed, jumped on or shoved aside by screaming, shouting kids.

I loved those summer days, when we'd come home and meet my husband as he pulled in the driveway from work, all of the kids vying for his attention to tell him who they played with, who they saw, who tripped and scraped a knee or an elbow. Evenings back then were spent grilling hamburgers and hot dogs, playing in the yard, chasing lightening bugs and fighting off mosquitoes, just like evenings are these days. Only now, when our kids stop by in the evening, eventually they head out to their respective homes and we're here alone, just the two of us, and talk usually turns to those summers past. We both work full time and have to get to sleep earlier and don't see near as many fireflies or mosquitoes.

But we remember, and miss those times and pray that our kids have just as many pleasant memories of their small town summers.