Summer's End

Summer is drawing toward its close. Some OKC schools have already started, and G starts school on Thursday. Back to the routine of homework and limited TV time and hectic mornings and trying to get dinner on the table. Yet I look forward to the start of school and the return to some semblance of family life for me and my boy.

It has been a good summer, despite all the changes and craziness of schedule. Grayson has stayed busy and un-bored. I've been settling into a new home and new life, enjoying the slightly slower pace of Norman living. The dogs are home and happy. I haven't DONE as much with my summer as I had hoped, but you never do. Now that the new school year looms ahead, I begin to think, as I always do at this time of year, of new beginnings.

This year I will...
Get Grayson to school on time and prepared
Limit his TV time more effectively
Spend more time with friends
Get a new lease on work
Read more and write more
Take good care of myself
Get out and do stuff

I think my list probably always looks similar to this one. But it makes me feel better to make it.

Meanwhile, summer still has a deathgrip on the weather. This weekend B and I decided to make a return trip to Tahlequah to float the river with the boys. It's just too good a lazy summertime activity for them to miss, and makes a great closer for the season. Sun, water, junk food and a full day of just cruising along, enjoying the journey. Sort of a metaphor for summer itself, don't you think? Nowhere to go, just enjoying the trip.

So I got us a groovy kids suite at Holiday Inn with two twin beds and a kids area with TV and Nintendo, so it should be a regular party.



I miss having a family. Grayson and I do pretty well. But it's different.

Tonight, to change the subject, I get my G-rex back for good, and we are celebrating by going to opening night of the new Miyazaki film "Ponyo." We're both very excited about it. It will be a great Friday night together, followed by an early morning to head out to Tahlequah.

Another Milestone Missed

Last night I realized that I have washed Grayson's hair for the last time.

I ran a bath for him and then hung out in the living room, reading a book and drinking wine while he splashed about. He came out all wet-headed and warm and cuddly in his jammies (which are, once again, noticeably too small) and I realized that some time in the last few months I washed his hair for him for the last time. I don't even know when it was, and of course at the time I didn't realize it was the last. I know I washed it for him at least once while we were at the apartment, but I haven't done so for months. Another piece of his childhood, gone and over with. I stroked his wet head and tucked him into bed and realized in another year or so I won't be doing that anymore, either.

Of course I want my boy to grow up strong and independent, but it's hard to lose these little pieces of him. He is such a sweet, gentle little boy, it's hard to imagine him as an adolescent. Hard to imagine myself without a little boy who wants to sit on my lap and hug me and play with me. Who loves me more than anyone in the world.

G told me that on the way back from their trip last weekend, Grayson asked him if he believed in Santa. Sigh. I will have to remember to hold on tight to every minute now....

Friday he goes back to his dad for the last week of summer, and then I get him back full time. I have enjoyed having some time to myself in the summer, but it's been too much! I feel as if he has spent all summer with his dad. When he's with me, it feels like we barely have time to get used to each other before he's gone again. I'll be glad for the beginning of the school year and the return of a normal schedule for us. It's selfish of me, but I don't care. I've missed him!

A different world

After less than a week of having Grayson home, I was obliged to pack him up on Friday and send him off again with his dad. On Saturday he boarded a plane in Dallas and flew to New Mexico, where he met G mom for a few days with his cousins. I talked to him this morning and, though he'd left me a somewhat pitiful message at bedtime the night before, it sounds like he's having a terrific time.

Meanwhile I find myself with another week of free time on my hands. I could, of course, be using this time to accomplish any number of needed tasks: mowing the lawn would be a good idea. There are weeds to pull. The toilet needs scrubbing, and there are still a few boxes in the garage that I haven't unpacked. But I'm not. I'm lying on the sofa reading books, when I'm not sleeping or watching reruns of "House." Pitiful.

Today, to redeem myself somewhat I got on my bike and went for a ride. This is something I find really enjoyable that I could not have done with such pleasure in OKC. Norman is such a quiet town, and the side streets are virtually empty during the dinner hour. Even tooling down Berry Road was no problem, though it's more fun to take the neighborhood streets where there are no cars swinging wide to get around you. Riding in Norman reminds me of when I was a kid. The smell of cut grass, kids on bikes, dads out mowing lawns, barbecue smoke. It smells like home. I guess you never get away from that feel of your suburban childhood.

It makes me glad to have moved here... glad that Grayson will grow up in that environment as well... not the semi-urban jungle of mid-town OKC, where there are panhandlers walking just a block from his house and police helicopters cruising low over the neighborhood at night. I would never have let Grayson walk six blocks to school by himself in OKC. Here, I won't think a thing about it, just hustle him out the door. My bike has been parked on the front porch unlocked for two weeks, unmolested, and what's more, the kids' bikes in the yard in the house across the street are practically on the curb, and remain there, day and night. At the old house, before G moved out he got his bike stolen from inside the fence, and all his cds stolen from inside the Trooper. It's a different world.