Summer Memories

This Summer my children are attending a plethora of Summer day camps: art, dance, basketball, baseball, music, VBS and cheerleading. I feel that these activities are enriching for my children--and they give us some measure of structure and excitement in our day. Most of these camps are only 2-3 hours each morning--still allowing for 10-11 hours of 'unstructured' family time. Although some Moms balk at our schedule, this works for our family.

The children are able to 'sleep in' (since that means 7am for them), ease into their morning and still make it to a 9 or 10 am start time.

Today I started thinking about how my children's Summers compare to mine growing up. Both of my parents worked, but I was blessed to live in very close proximity to several members of my Mom's family. My aunt and uncle lived next door, my great aunt and uncle lived next door to her and my grandmama and grandaddy lived behind us.

My Summer days were spent exploring--picking honeysuckles, blackberries and figs. We scarcely wore shoes all Summer, chased lightning bugs, played hide and seek at dusk. We did a lot of swimming...and watched a lot of television.

Now that my children are beyond their toddlerhood and into true childhood, I am mindful that these are the days they will remember. I want my children to experience some of the simple joys from my past. When we moved into this house two years ago, it was largely for the yard--and the room this lot gave our children to run and explore and grow up loving the outdoors the way my husband and I did. We are currently contemplating planting blackberries, blueberries and honeysuckles in our backyard...just to bring a little bit of Alabama into my children's childhood.

I am not trying to recreate my childhood, per se, but I would love a tangible way to bring some of my history into my children's young lives.