saturday.

we slept in till seven our first morning of summer break. the oldest and i did four miles around the neighborhood, showered, breakfasted, then everyone got to work: art prints and photos for me, weed extraction for the kids. i ferried my eleven year old to the book store and while he searched for a birthday gift i threaded up and down quiet rows, basking in the smell of ink and glue and paper.

come noon, (biggish) m and i had a lunch date at his restaurant of choice: taco bell. and on the drive back i framed his grin in the rear view mirror and told him how very nice it was to have some soft taco time with just him. he’s such a sponge, that one, blossoming under a splash of approval, soft at heart and giddy to please.

we’re aiming to be more deliberate about focused time with the littles, mindful of the landslides of change that lie ahead. upheaval can cause sinkholes, and i’d like to keep their hearts tethered within gripping distance so no one goes down alone. right now we’ve instituted once a month $10 dates with each kid–and maybe there’ll soon come a day when they pare down to $2 dates, but no matter our budget we’re carving out space for this.

we played board games in the afternoon humidity, ran a few loads of laundry, then i worked on photos again and pieced a wildly belated little-boy quilt. dinner was mozzarella-y mounds of leftover chicken pasta (the mister took elle on a pizza date), followed by cleaning and a weekly phone chat with my mom.

all in all, a happy blend of work and play and rest, and an awfully sweet first day of summer. we’re pretty pumped about the seventy-six to come.