These Beautiful Summer Days

As I write this my kids are running between our house and the house across the street playing with the neighbor girl, eating Popsicles, tossing water balloons and throwing themselves belly first onto beach towels.  The whole while there is laughter, screaming, discussion, more screaming.  Sometimes they get thirsty and don’t want to go all the way inside, so they drink from the hose.  My daughter runs barefoot across grass and concrete and pebbles.  My son’s flip flops slap the ground as he runs after the girls with his water balloon arsenal.  The screaming starts up again and the game is on.

I’ve seen these videos and blogs online about how days gone by Summer was different, we had it better.  I’ve read about all the things that made those hot, languid days a nostalgic paradise.  The only thing that makes those days better than these is that we got to be the kids back then.  We got to run barefoot and free.  We got to run in our bathing suits, savage beasts, through the streets, and rule the world.

If our children aren’t using up every moment of Summer, enjoying these last days, moments, to their fullest, we have only ourselves to blame.  If Summer has gone by without sun burns and mosquito bites and scraped knees and too late bedtimes then we haven’t done right be them.  Because these Summer days were made for them.  Our Summers were back then, they were wonderful but now is for them.  We’re just the spectators in the play that is their beautiful life.