“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting
August has been unusually cool so far, but that changed just yesterday. We'd been closing the windows and doors at night already to keep the house warm overnight, and last night we closed them again, but to keep the house cool! The daytime temps had been in the 70s and just rocketed back into the 90s. Cooler weather doesn't stop little boys from playing in the water.
A couple of weeks ago I sat on the dock at our lake house in my jeans and hoodie, watching the kids play in the water, soaking wet and blue lipped.
Just last week, Gavin slipped off his sweatshirt so he could run through the sprinkler!
Cliff and Gavin had used the Bobcat to remove some ridiculously overgrown buckthorn bushes (trees!), and that left some big "holes" in our woods and in our lawn. Cliff had the sprinkler running to help try to heal the lawn where the Bobcat had torn it up. This was just the opportunity Gavin was looking for! No swim trunks for this kid! He was happy as a clam in his jeans and $1 garage sale spiderman shirt!
I LOVE the way that the sun shines into our yard in the early evening... especially in the late summer and early fall. It's magical! It's such a warm golden yellow gleaming through the trees, casting long shadows across the yard and lighting up the leaves on the trees like little green Christmas lights strung branch to branch!
All of a sudden, out of the great and deep wild blue, this crazy kid wants his picture taken. This kid who for two years has frowned and grouched and grumbled at the camera, is POSING and asking me to take his picture! He doesn't want any direction from me and he tilts his head to the side and grins. It's hilarious and sweet and not-all-that-genuine, but I love it! You may have also noticed that the day I posted about him choosing his clothing every day and completely avoiding anything I would have chosen such as nice polo shirts, cute little plaid button-ups, etc. and instead wearing the cartoon-y graphic printed superhero shirts, etc., he happened to be wearing a nice polo shirt in the photo I included in that post! It's like he has a sixth sense! He literally started choosing nice polos and khakis THAT DAY. I promise he can't read, but it was as if he read my blog post!
Typically when I want to take his photo, he sticks his tongue out, puts his hands up like weird little antlers and rolls his eyes. It's adorable, really... and so annoying. Then one day he just decided he wanted nice pictures of himself and here we are!
Speaking of annoying and adorable though, he's been cracking me up with his little antics! He now says in his sweet little voice, "Mom, did you know that you are being very irritating right now?" when he doesn't like something I'm doing. It's so teenager that it just makes me laugh. Oh, and he says "speaking of _____" when we're not speaking of it at all! We could be talking about brussels sprouts and he'll say "speaking of monster trucks, I got a new green monster truck." What a sweet and lovable little weirdo!
Cliff and I have talked since before we ever even built our house, about putting in some kind of water feature - a small garden pond, a little waterfall, or a little recycling creek. Then we had kids... and that kind of fun little project took much more time, effort, and money than we have had to play with!
We love songbirds and have had several bird baths around our house, but have really wanted some sort of moving water. We've talked about putting in some sort of natural rock with a bubbler and small pool of collected water, since we have natural stone already all around the house.
Time has gone by and each time we're in a garden center we browse through the "fountains" and they all look a little too fancy or a little too fakey for us. Early this spring I was at a garden center with my mother-in-law and pointed out this fountain, noting that althought it was a little bigger / taller than I preferred, I thought it would work well in our space, at least until we could build and install something a little more permanent. Lo and behold, when our wedding anniversary rolled around in July, we were given a big, heavy box by Cliff's parents. Inside, of course, was the fountain, and it works perfectly on the edge of our patio!
Look how much Drake, our bear, er... um... I mean dog, loves the fountain! Actually he loves drinking out of it, which I'm not excited about. He always drank from the bird baths and I thoguht that maybe the moving water would deter him, but no such luck!
It's perfect for birds, bears dogs, and little boys too!
Why yes, he IS outside in his underwear! Just another day in the odd life...
a little bit o' momma lovin!
No comments:
Post a Comment