The Hazy, Lazy, Crazy Days of Summer
Brace yourselves Moms, it’s almost here. Summer vacation is just around the corner Let us start preparing ourselves for three long. long. LONG months of having kids around the house all day. The time for such thought provoking conversations as questions that begin with… “Can I?” and “Why”? along with There’s nothing to do around here” and .Tm bored”, will be here before we know it. It doesn’t seem too early to start practicing our standard responses such as… “No’”, because”, “That’s too bad” and “close the door, the flies are coming in the house”. The only saving thing that I can see about having the kids around the house all summer is the thought that school will start again in September. (if Mom can last that long)
“Clark” has already given me a sneak preview of what my summer will be like. He has had his first taste of sunburn on his neck and ears and skinned knees. And of course he stands and hollars when I try to put medicine on his owie saying it will hurt. The only summer affliction that he hasn’t suffered are mosquito bites from one end of him to the other. But it won’t be long now before he will walk around the house smelling like a giant sized can of OFF. Seems like the most common smells around the house in the summer, when you have kids, are Bactine and Off. He has also been hungry, thirsty and bored for the last three weekends in preparation for the hazy, lazy, crazy days of summer.
The hazy, lazy, crazy days of summer also other fun things like…taking care of all the vegetables in the garden. (that the kids won’t eat). The weekend gardener at our house, Mr M, has already planted his 1985 victory garden. This year his garden is a little fancier than in years past. This year our yard sports a french bedding garden. Now doesn’t that sound impressive? For those of you who are wondering (like I did), what a french bed- ding garden is, let me describe it for you. It is a garden where you plant your vęggies in mounds of dirt instead of rows. Each mound in our garden is approximately four foot wide and six feet long. Actually, the garden looks more like Boot Hill than a place to grow vegetables. We have twelve mounds of dirt in our garden that looks like we have interred the James Boys. Doc Holiday and all the gang. All we need are wooden crosses to hang the seed packages on for identification of what is buried there. The only thing that concerns me is the possibility of being issued a summons for operating a vegetable graveyard without a license. With all the little seeds in place, all we have to do now is spend the summer watering and pulling weeds, in preparation for the big harvest. Now is also the time we can start making plans for the disposal of the harvest. We can make a list of names of friends to invite over so we can fill their car with fresh homegrown vegetables and we can start figuring out hiding places for the green goodies that are left over.
So as I said, brace yourself Mom, and start praying that the little virtue that God bestowed on each of us called patience, will hold out for what will sometime feel like the longest three months of our lives. We can always keep one thing in mind…just think how much fun it will be to pawn off all the vegetables on our friends, while they are insisting that they have enough vegetables of their own to feed the army, and washing off the Off and dressing those pesty kids in new clothes to send them back to school in the fall. It’s thoughts like these that will keep us going.
