Silence IS Golden!

It is the last day of school!! I have not been this happy about a last day of school in about; oh well, a lot of years.  I woke the kids up singing songs about it being the last day of school.  Neither one was impressed.  We had an impromptu dance party to celebrate and everyone went on to their respective schools. I only had to work an hour today.  Happy Summer to me!  

When I found out I was only going to have to work an hour today, I first thought that I should pick up the kids or do something crazy, mom fun like that said "WOOHOO SUMMER!".  Thankfully, I quickly came to my senses and instead you can find me at home right now. Alone.  Enjoying something I will not have anytime soon: silence. Silence will not be heard in this house for a long time.

Thank you.  I will.

 In the beginning of summer we go outside and bring our noise with us.  We swim, we play in the driveway, and we go to the park.  But as summer drags on and it gets too hot for man or beast, all of our noise will be inside.  There will be a TV or radio or video game and they will be on loud.  There will be the slam of the door opening, closing or my yelling "Close the door!".  There will be whining, there will heavy sighs, there will be moaning.  There will be yelling: yelling at each other, yelling at the dogs, yelling for me MOMWHEREAREYOU?  I am hiding in my closet trying to find one minute of silence, that is where I will be.

It won't be all bad noise.  There will be laughing, please God, lots of laughing.  There will be the squeal of preteen girls jammed four to a bedroom squeaking and squealing and laughing until they cry.  Because everything is funny, everything has to be relived and everything must be screamed at the top of their lungs in that small room.  There will be boy laughter that starts with "dude!" and ends with a fist bump and goes right into lengthy video game discussion.  There will be adult laughter over summer drinks because really, everything is very funny and laugh-out-loudable over summer drinks.  There will be dinner conversation where everyone talks over each other until Bill and I lock eyes and smile thinking we made this loud mess.  Or we lock eyes and question how many more days til school starts?  There will be teen laughter; secretive and almost elusive and we will strain to hear more.  There will be friends over adding to the din and requests for lemonade, food, more food, more everything.

There will be the daily questioning of where are we going today?  What will be fun today?  Thankfully I have Adventure Mondays in my pocket courtesy of a good friend who is a fun mom and I can tag along, slacker-like, as we all have fun, at least once a week.  There will be road trip planning and with it a million questions of where is this?  What can I pack? How long will be gone?  What about the dogs?  

There have been many summers when I have braced myself for the onslaught of summer and its noise.  I planned camps or weeks or days down to the minute. I don't feel like I am bracing myself this year. I feel like my silence today is giving me time to mentally prepare for summer and after two hours of it, I say bring it.  Bring the noise.  Bring the stickiness of summer with its watermelon faces and lemonade on the counters by kids who pour while watching TV.  Bring the smell of sunscreen on warm skin and chlorine bleached hair.  Bring the smell of BBQ on the breeze, however warm and stagnant that breeze might be.  The boy and I will be on the back deck breathing it in.  

You can almost smell how hot it is.

I think it was three or four years ago you could ask me at any day during the summer how many days it was until school started.  "Eighty-six" I said as school ended that year, or "We are down to twenty!" I cried jubilantly.  However, if you asked me right now how many more days, I would say not enough.  I hope this is still my answer in August.  Hopefully if I tuck away just a few pockets of silence between then and now, it will be.