it's the follow-through that always gets me

Today was the last day of second grade.



I don't know how it's possible that the second grade went faster than the first grade, which went faster than kindergarten. But it's true that these years are incredibly fleeting and I am in awe at how fast the time is going past.  Next year, they will all be in separate classes for third grade and I'm going to really miss the lovely convenience of having them in one class, with one incredibly magnificent teacher, who has been with them since first grade.  Time just keeps marching on...



We now have eleven (11!) blissful summer weeks ahead of us and in the Spirit of Seizing the Moment because my babies are growing up before my very eyes ... when I asked the children what they wanted to do this summer, they rattled off all kinds of things ranging from strawberry picking to visiting family and friends and Niagara Falls.

We've already started a list and I'm fully planning on executing as many of the activities as humanly possible.   To kick things off, this weekend, we're hosting three of the children's friends for a spend-the-night event (our first ever) while their parents head up to the mountains to celebrate their wedding anniversary.  I've been thinking that it would be really cool if we camped in the back yard, after we cooked dinner over an open fire and had a raucous game of night-time laser tag. We'd wear camouflage and paint our faces to match. This sounds like an amazing thing to do and I'm sure the kids would love it and remember it forever.  But I won't mention it to them just yet, because when the time rolls around to actually do it, I'll probably be exhausted after watching seven children all weekend and decide that the mosquito bites and tripping hazards associated with running around in the dark just aren't worth it. So it's likely that I'll instead make a huge bowl of popcorn and host a nice quiet Superman movie marathon.

See, my challenge is that I have the mind of a very hip mom.

And the stamina of a sloth.