Just thinking about summer and hot days
July 16, 2013
Posted By: Shaunescy
Hoo-boy it’s hot!
These days that means heading to the Splash park in Belgrade or to Bogert pool to cool off. Sun hats, sun screen, towels and juice boxes in tow. But I was thinking about what that has meant to me in the past.
When I was a kid, my sisters and I would slick up with baby oil and lounge around on the trampoline, intermittently jumping in the pool to cool off, leaving a slick in our wake that would make the Exxon Valdez look like nothing if you agreed with our father. Fair enough, he was the one who tried to keep the pool clean and for some weird reason Junebugs love baby oil.
We’d tromp off into the woods to make a campfire, flattening tall grass through the field as we went. Laying down to smash ‘rooms’ and tunnels in a mazelike fashion. Sun peeking and shining through the waves of ripe timothy. I became a young expert of tick removal.
Thinking that summer was so loooooong. Agonizing over how to tame the wild bunnies that drove my gardening mother to distraction. I once caught a baby shrew in the woodpile. My parents made me let it go. That was a sad day for me. I loved natural distractions and hated to say goodbye to my new furry friend. But, ultimately I could see their wisdom. Ain’t nobody giving a shrew a cookie, he wants a raw steak.
Riding on my bicycle for miles and miles. Living in the country was great for that but it became a necessity. After a month without camps or classes the 3 of us sisters would be so at odds with each other that we’d have to ride off in our different directions to a friend’s house. Friends in those days were very much a matter of proximity. My best friends back then all lived within a sweaty 6 mile radius. None of us dared to get cross with one another. Angie's and Gena's houses were my life rafts. And I believe our house was theirs too.
And this was all when I was not much older than my son is now. We were simply more ‘free-range’ back then. And while I wholeheartedly cannot imagine a different childhood, I am a very different mother.
And I wonder about how to let them be more free.
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All my best, BunnyFufu ~ The Housewife
