Things I've Learned This Summer

1. Novels sometimes benefit from you taking time away. Gardens . . . not so much.

Well, not unless you are growing weeds or something. And, let me tell you, I got some spectacular weeds (in addition to the sunflower/bean and voracious pumpkin plant) during that month where I didn't weed it at all.

2. Never leave a three year old alone in the kitchen with a running mixer. Not even for a few seconds.

I was making bread and while it was kneading, I washed the stove and the sink. (See! I do housework sometimes.) I decided it was time to wash the rag and was about to take it down to the washing machine when I hesitated. My 3 year old had been "helping" to make the bread and had been standing on a chair to watch it knead for several minutes. But then I decided he'd been so good and I'd only be gone for a few seconds. So I ran downstairs to the laundry room.

Screams issued from the kitchen. In the few seconds I'd been gone, he decided to make a tower of vitamin bottles and dropped one of them in the bread dough. And the mixer was trying to beat it in. Vitamin enriched bread, anyone?

I had to rescue the bottle and wash it off before he'd believe me that everything was okay.

3. Boys and girls are different.

Yeah, I knew this, but it kept cropping up this summer. Over and over. Things like my daughter coming home from her first swim lesson disappointed that no one told her how cute her new swim suit was. Her teacher was a boy, along with everyone else in the class. As if any of them would say anything!

And another conversation between my son and daughter when we drove past a sky full of paragliders.

Daughter: That looks like fun.
Son: Yeah! If only they had guns too, it would be awesome!

Yeah. Awesome. Paragliders with guns. I shudder at the thought.

4. How to get teenage girls to sleep so you can sleep while sharing a cabin.

Earlier this summer, I spent a week up in the mountains sharing a cabin with 11 teenage girls and 3 other leaders. And the girls Did. Not. Sleep. They giggled and giggled and giggled and then tried to take naps the next day.

(And, yes, I did chase one of them around the cabin to keep her from taking a nap the next afternoon. She proceeded to draw a portrait of me with horns and fiery eyes. And then fell asleep in someone else's bed so I couldn't find her. Argh.)

Anyway, a leader in another cabin is a storyteller by profession. She said she turned out all the lights and then told them stories. She suggested turning out all the lights but my flashlight and reading them stories (I brought several picture books with me). We tried it and it worked so well! They were all asleep immediately.

In case you're ever in a similar situation, trust me, you will want ideas on how to get them to sleep!

5. I should never agree to do anything. I have some weird idea that I am awesome and can do way more than I think I can do. And then I fall short and feel terrible. Sorry to anyone I've promised something to and then not followed through on.

6. Find a hairstylist you like and then trust her (or his) judgment.

And that's probably enough said about that. Except, being me, I always have a story and just can't stop talking. So I'll say that the lady who cuts my hair is married to my high school biology teacher. She teaches at a local beauty school, but also has a salon in her house and I still feel silly going to "my teacher's" house.

But at the same time, it's amusing to remember when they got married and his style went from completely mismatched to pretty stylish. We all (meaning the girls--because boys and girls are different) got a good laugh about that in high school.

7. Construction is inevitable.

The main topic in our neck of the woods is how much we hate the construction. It's bad. I took the kids to back to school night last night and discovered that, to take them to school on Monday, our path is going to look a lot like those Family Circus cartoons--the ones where the kid could have taken a direct path, but didn't. Except in our case, we can't take a direct path. Because they've torn up all the roads. Everywhere.

I so wish I was exaggerating about that, but one of my kids asked recently, "Mom, what are we going to do if they destroy the entire world?"

I was preparing for a zombie apocalypse, but it turns out that I should have worried about a construction workers apocalypse. So I ask: are you prepared? Are you ready for the construction workers to come to YOUR neighborhood?