We’re Almost Through It

Independence Day was this past weekend.  I think that I speak for parents (and dog parents) everywhere when I say, thank god that’s over.  With Memorial Day as the unofficial start to summer, the Fourth of July has to be the unofficial middle.

It’s also guaranteed to mean that we have now entered the height of the heat for the year.  Yeah!  Under boob sweat for everyone!

The Fourth of July also means fireworks, barking dogs, and drunk neighbors screaming at said barking dogs.  This didn’t used to bother me quite as much.  Maybe it’s because I was usually drunk and setting off my own fireworks (yeah, karma, I get it).  Yes, those were the good old days, when I wasn’t holding a terrified toddler.  One who was probably convinced that we were under attack from enemies unknown, and all the neighborhood dogs had banded together to defend us.

She was probably also wondering why her father and I weren’t more concerned.  We are sticklers about her jumping on the couch, but we’re super cool about things exploding outside?  It must have been a very confusing weekend for her. 

So yes, I was longing a bit for the good old days this weekend.  The days where the summer meant going down the shore, staying up late drinking beers on the patio, sleeping until whenever I felt like it, and spending my free time floating around the pool dozing and reading.

I thought about those summer books, too.  The ones I lazed through back when I didn’t have quite as many cares in the world.  They were just so much more enjoyable when I was peeking out from under a hat with a large floppy brim and dark sunglasses.

That’s not to say that I hate summer as a mom, because I really don’t.  Sure, everything is a lot hotter because I have a thirty something pound child that sometimes decides that her and her wet bathing suit would be much more comfortable on my lap while we both become slick with sweat and sun screen.  And who is, for some unknown reason, always sticky.

Okay, that doesn’t really sound as positive as I meant it to.  But know that I really do enjoy those sweaty ass days.

Also, I can’t really can’t say that I haven’t done any reading so far this summer.  As I sit here thinking about it, I’ve actually done quite a bit of reading…

Here’s the run down so far. I present to you, My Summer Reading List 2016:

1. The Pout Pout Fish, by Deborah Diesen.  Read, 9,258,687,810 times.  The first 6,000 times I found the book quite enjoyable.  We even worked out a little routine to go with it that my grandmother would frequently get in on.  I found the middle couple million times a little tedious.  We stuck it out and read it a few million more times and I think it will be a staple around here for years to come.
2. What Floats, by Julie Aigner-Clark and Nadeem Zaidi. Read, thirty times.  Actually, we only really look at the pictures with the bubbles.  My daughter points at them and says, “Ohh dis?!” (what’s this?) And I say, “That’s a bubble.” And we do this over and over and over again until one of us cries.
3. First 100 Words, by Roger Priddy. Read, well, I don’t think we have actually ever read it cover to cover.  Usually we just go through random pages and she asks me “Ohh dis?” until I lose my shit and redirect her to the What Floats book.  It’s a vicious cycle.
4. Approximately twenty articles on potty training, written by various authors. Read, each one once.  I have decided that my mother is full of crap and there is no way that I was potty trained by the time I was my daughter’s age.  Way.  I will revisit this whole potty training thing, I don’t know when, just some other time.
5. Winter Knight, by Jim Butcher. Read, approximately twenty pages.  That’s right, twenty pages over the past two or so months.  At this rate I will be able to add it to the inevitable, My Summer Reading List 2017.
6. Several Google searches to determine if what my daughter is doing/saying/eating/not eating is normal. It is and it isn’t, depending on the web site.  So, yeah, color me reassured.
7. The backs of six different bottles of sunscreen, because apparently they no longer make the one I used last summer and now I need to blindly stare at the bottles again and pretend that I know what I’m looking for that will be a big red flag that it is toxic poison and not in fact, sun screen.
8. One Google search to see if there was a legal loophole for murdering your husband when he spends an entire weekend staying up late playing video games and reads and entire book in a day and then complains to you that he is sooooooo tired. For the record, there is not.

Anyone else looking forward to fall?