“Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.”
– Russel Baker

That’s right. It’s for real. Summer announced it’s arrival like Uncle Bernie drilling the front doorbell with the tip of his cane. It’s 90-something and heart-stoppingly humid. Hold on, I think I just saw a kid start a fight with balls of air.

This is about things that are fast.

Fast like babies graduating from high school

or worse yet, college.

And then hitching a ride on a Harley (shudder!)

Fast, like a husband whooshing past you a la Lance Armstrong (in his pre-doping days).

Fast, like the time it takes to go from serious to goofy. (About 1.2 seconds if you’re curious.)

Fast, like the blink of an eye between the moment a 9 year-old sees a jar of goldfish to when he asks if he can take one – or five – home.

Things are moving too fast lately. There’s no time to even look at the roses, never mind smelling them. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make my babies keep being babies and I can’t make the grass stop growing and I can’t make the calendar stop turning.

I’ve noticed that I seem to get this way at the end of the school year. I really do love having the kids home.

Except when I don’t.

I think most moms can commiserate. And if they say they don’t, then they’re not doing it right.

But I want to start this summer off right so I need to make some promises to myself.

1. I will make breakfast on Wednesdays (because Monday is laundry day and Tuesday is grocery day. Very busy. Very, very busy.)

2. I will be a patient driving instructor (unless he gets crazy with the radio. Then I’ll have to put my foot down.)

3. I will enforce the no TV rule when the sun is out (unless Phineas and Ferb is on. I just love them!)

I will run the sprinklers in the middle of a hot day. I will invite the neighbor kids over.

I will slow down … because they don’t call it the “lazy days of summer” for nothing.