Next week, the girls head back to school. We’re almost ready – their school supplies are packed in their new backpacks, their first day outfits are hanging in the bathroom and we spent yesterday completely organizing their bedroom. There are piles of bags headed to the trash and piles of toys headed to our local donation store where, hopefully, some little boy or little girl will find the same joy from playing with them that Gracie and Abigail did. That kind of radical cleaning is hard for me – I don’t mind going through their clothes and getting rid of things they’ve outgrown. Possibly, this is a result of my total aversion to doing laundry, but I think it might have more to do with the definitiveness of growing out of clothes – once the clothes no longer fit, they no longer fit (the same is, of course, not true for my clothes). Their toys, though? That’s a whole other ball game – what if they want to play with them again? What if I’m pushing them to grow up too quickly by giving away the pre-schooler computer game that Abigail got for Christmas three years ago (that admittedly she never really played with)? What if we give away that stuffed animal that Gracie bought in Savannah last summer? If we give away the toy, are we also giving away the memory of the time we spent there swimming and touring Juliette Gordon Low’s house? I know that’s silly. Sometimes, I feel like holding onto things is the only way to keep a tenuous grasp on their fleeting childhood days. But then, I am reminded, almost daily, that it is not the “stuff” of their childhood that makes it memorable, it is the time they spend with friends, with family, with Steve and me that makes these years so magical.
Time with friends building hotels out of seaweed for Greek and Roman gods…
And, of course, we can’t forget a seaweed hotel for pony princesses
Time spent realizing that the greatest treasures come, not from the toy store, but from nature..
These last few weeks of summer we’ve been blessed to see friends that we haven’t seen for months, to soak up the sun at the beach and the pool, to sleep late and lay in the front yard and watch shooting stars. I’m not ready for school to start; I never am. That first day of school seems to mark time more officially than any other day, but I know new adventures are headed this way for all of us and I have the sweet memories of this summer tucked safely in my heart to pull out whenever I need them.