the rules for summer

Not exactly rules per se but we've fallen into a certain kind of weekend routine, one predicated on a simple idea:

avoid bursting into flame.

The sun isn't the enemy -- not exactly -- but C and I are both old enough to treat the dragging afternoon apocalypse with a certain amount of respect and distaste. The irradiated skin, the inside-out boiling, the wobbling and then collapse of one's central nervous system ... all of these things are better left to the kind of people who go shirtless for a (non)living, and can smoke while holding three babies.


So we do our business in the morning. On Saturday it's the park, where the theme for Oona is always the same: Run, please. And she does, mostly from slide to swing to climbing structure to bench to interesting stick to excitable dog to other children, all the time pointing at everything like a traffic cop or a tour guide. Then we go for a winding walk home, hit a yard sale or two, have some lunch, and then a long afternoon nap. On Sundays I go to the studio. I'm there by seven, with a list of things to do and the energy of someone with more plans than talent or time. Right now, at the height of summer, I can usually stay 'til noon-ish before things get too warm, my eyes get too bleary and I need some lunch. If Oona *doesn't* sleep on Sunday afternoon, we'll go swimming -- indoors, at the gym we belong to -- and I'll ask many pointed questions about where all that Oona-energy has gone to when she *doesn't* want to kick or float or even be in the kiddie end.

p.s. And then, finally, a big walloping thunderstorm this morning, even as I drank my coffee and typed this, which ended with me sitting in the dark (the computer has its own battery, mom).