June 1, 2006: Last Day

And so summer begins. Our "last day" ended without much fanfare. Wednesdays are so busy around here that we didn't give our year a good, proper party. I used to imagine ending the year with cake and trophies, but now I know that the waking up with a whole free day ahead is enough.

Those are the days of my childhood that are so clear to me. It's different here in the south, to be sure, largely because of air conditioning. As a child, summer meant birds in the morning, warm breeze through the screens, and utter freedom. The air conditioning here wipes out the bird songs fairly thoroughly and of course the warm breeze left us last week--but I can still feel that freedom .

Each year I contemplate year-round "schooling"...for about a minute. The sheer joy of "nothing to do" in the summer surpasses all arguments in favor of "keeping their math skills sharp" and such. The learning never stops, of course. Camping, hiking, swimming, reading, arts and crafts, hole-digging, bug collecting. And they have their share of sports and camps of various sorts and other activities of that nature. Jesse's even taking two computer courses this summer--just for fun. ;-)

But crack a math book? Do a page of Daily Grams? You won't see that happening in our own Small World. We're on summer break!