Summer Vacation

We have just returned home from more than a week in Minnesota, and I realize this is the longest hiatus I have taken from the blog since it began in May 2007. As with so many things, our trip passed quickly, yet when I think back a whole week to my nephew Finn's 7 1/2 birthday party, or Monday's trip to the State Fair with cousins, Tuesday's pool party with moms Rebecca and Liz and kids Scarlett, Laila, and Owen; Wednesday's underwater exploration at the Mall of America's giant underground aquarium; or even Friday's visit to a playground deemed "chutes and ladders" for it's maze of rope ladders and twisting slides, it all feels light years away. I do know that in our time away, I learned of one engagement and three pregnancies (including my sister-in-law, Nicole's!), and one dear friend gave birth to her first child, a son (mazel tov, Sara and Roy!), showing just how much life can happen in a short span of time.

Such a busy week away also creates a blogger's nightmare: finding yourself way behind, with dozens of photos and anecdotes to share. My pictures are a little spotty, too: one of the drawbacks of having two kids is that you never seem to have a free hand. (Clio is quite a mimic these days, and this notion is confirmed by the fact that she is now always telling me "I have my hands full." I wonder where she hears these things?)

Hopefully several of these outings and stories will get their due over the coming days. We'll see. This trip truly felt like summer vacation, and this week we all go back to school: Clio begins the twos program at Brooklyn Heights Montessori on Thursday, Eleri gives day care a try for a day, and Wednesday evening, I debut my playacting as a "professor" with a class I'm teaching for Creative Time at NYU. Between these new adventures and the demands of a 7-week-old, who knows how frequently I'll find time to escape to the basement to share my musings on parenthood (and gain a little peace of mind)? What I do know is that it feels like we packed some of the best of summer vacation into one short week, and, happily, I was too busy enjoying it to document those ephemeral favorites like fires in the fire pit, sitting out under the deck late into the night eating ice cream and talking with family, or spinning my daughter round and round in a great expanse of suburban lawn until we both fell down laughing in the late afternoon sun.

I believe that true summer is about being outside as much as possible, and being near the water. Like so many things, my daughter seems to have inherited this belief, too.