And suddenly it was summer. Everything changed. The days became whole, organic in shape, not sliced up by imposed schedules. The boys began to sleep late, lying in bed till 8, sometimes even 9. Lupe made it in sometime after 10 though always before 11. The house filled with the voices of children, mine and Lupe's and the neighbors'. Sometimes there were as many as 11 kids here. They ate popsicles and left the wrappers all over the yard. Had a grape fight on the porch. Rode bikes up and down the block (Gus swooping on and off driveways into the street no matter how often I rebuked his riding priviledges for it.) Bedtime lost it's edge. We stayed up late watching movies and eating popcorn.

And now it's over. The last few weeks the weather's gone cool and rainy. Tomorrow the boys start school. And I feel like I blew it, let the whole summer pass me by. I didn't hardly go riding with the boys or take Odojo on long walks, or sit on the porch watching the kids play. We didn't make it to the mountains. I didn't make a single berry pie or bean salad. I didnt' study PERL, didn't work on Gus' reading. Hardly read to the boys at all. They played a lot of sega. I worked and watched tv. Tonight it seems just that thin.

I did take a few notes though. I will post them now, a kind of summer retrospective. Maybe that will pull me out of this funk.