The summer

This summer, as with most, we have a regular ritual:
I go to work early, and  either LOML takes the children to camp, and goes off to run a program, or they all stay home for the moment, LOML designing great fun and educational activities for Boo and Skibo, and often, various other friends who are over.
In the afternoons, however, we try to make it out to the pool: we've become members of the local outdoor pool, and we are trying to make sure that we get everything out of it that we can.

It's amazing to see what good swimmers the children are turning into: Boo, as I have mentioned before, dives beautifully, and this afternoon, Skibo decided that he was going to do sitting dives from the side of the pool.  It appears that my policy of encouraging him, then giving up and letting him do it on his own schedule has worked!

The other, less wonderful, summer ritual, though, is bedtime.  With it as light as it remains late into the evening, it gets harder and harder to persuade the children that they should be asleep.  Still, a few more days and it will get easier every night.

Yours, hoping that the children turn these summers into beautiful memories,
N.