The Dog Days of Summer

Since March has rolled in (with a snowstorm), I have been longing for those "dog days of summer". You know what kind of days I'm talking about? I'm talking about those days where you cake on greasy sunscreen because you are going to be outside all day. Then, at some point in the day, you get to handle dirt either because you are working in it or getting your child out of it. While you are in the dirt, you glance over at your other child to make sure he's not getting into anything he shouldn't, and you can't help but smile every time you look at his legs, because legs that look like this...

just make you smile...and giggle a little. Clothing is optional for little boys in the summer who can strut wobbly beauties like this (diapers are not optional)!

Then, when it is just too hot, you take a cool dip in the pool for the rest of the afternoon. After getting back from the pool, you slip into some comfortable rolled up jeans, a white t-shirt, and flip flops. On your way in and out of the bathroom, you notice a slight sun kiss look on your cheeks. You smile and go down stairs to make dinner...chilled watermelon.

You eat juicy, crunchy watermelon on the back porch so you can just spit the seeds and not worry about sticky juice on your floor. You let the kids play in the sandbox while you swing on the porch swing while the sun sets. Then you wipe the the sand stuck on watermelon juice off your kids and send them off to bed with the wind blowing through the open window.

That will happen someday. Hopefully sooner than later. But for now, we are layering on clothes instead of sunscreen, digging in the snow instead of the dirt, plowing the basement instead of swimming, eating soup instead of watermelon, and sipping hot cocoa while we read books instead of playing out in the sandbox.

Daniel's tractor with a "plow" hitched to the back.
I think he has plowed miles in our basement.

In a couple of months I may be longing for my hot cocoa again. I'll enjoy it while I have it.