Summer

It's Eddie's first full week of summer break. Normally I'd be getting calls at work reminding me that he was home while I wasn't. This year, now that I'm home too it's going to be interesting. Officially, he's been done with school for four work days and it's already been an exhausting 4 days.

The last time we had a summer together was the summer we moved to Berks County, 9 years ago. Back then we were in a condo. There was no yard to mow, no things to tinker with around the house. We pretty much hung around the house every day. To put it politely, I was more than pleased when school started up that year.

In past years, it was always an adventure during summer break. I never knew what I was coming home to. A room in the basement for the dogs, complete with ramp to the window, electrical outlets and water hook up; a house inside the room with bedding for the dogs. Or the pond in the back yard complete with fish. A completed deck almost as long as our house. How about an outdoor kitchen with a porcelain sink.

This summer, already, we're stumbling over each other's routines. Now that Eddie's dad bought a saw mill he's been itching to spend every second working to get it up and running. Oh, did I mention that on our farm and between Eddie, his dad and uncle we have pretty much anything you can think of. Need a hole dug, we've got the back-hoe to do it. There are 5 mowers of varying sizes, at least 2 working tractors and god knows what in the barn. And have I mentioned the time that he took my '87 Honda and turned it into a log splitter, wood planer and have used the parts to make various other things? But I digress. . . back to this Saw Mill.

They're not as big as you think. I thought a Saw Mill meant a huge lumbering barn with blades and gears and chains. In reality this one is small in comparison to my initial guess. But this saw is not small either. And though it eventually will take some of these lumbering trees that have fallen throughout the property and cut them into 2x4s and wood planks; it still needs a lot of work.

As I type, Eddie is welding something, I'm sure he mentioned it as he ran out the door like a kid going out to play. I could tell as the morning wore on today that he was just itching to go there and do something. And if he's not playing with big toys or building things at the house he's taking apart things in our house and turning them into something else. He can not sit still. So while I pictured a summer of us lounging around and enjoying this time together, he pictured a summer of tinkering.

So we've come to a compromise. We'll spend a day or two with my mom and grandmother helping her out around the house and taking her to appointments and other outings. But I'd also like to be able to go out and do some local exploring. Like going to the Philadelphia Zoo, The Franklin Institute, Longwood Gardens. There's so much to do around here that we take for granted. And of course, Eddie will have his tinker time too. Which will be good for me, I'll need a break from his endless supply of energy. I swear he's got a flux capacitor built into him somewhere because that much energy is just not natural.

More importantly, I think that this summer will give us the opportunity to also connect in a way that we probably lost sight of. There's no work or school lumbering over us. I'm not so completely exhausted from work or emotionally drained that I don't want to do anything. There are no projects to put together, lesson plans that have to be turned in. So we actually have Ally and Eddie time. I'm looking forward to what the next month or so will bring.