Random summer bits

Michael promised Zoe that she could be his special helper building shelves for the basement this evening.  So when she woke up this morning, the first thing she did is start shoving plastic play tools into her underpants and run around, brown eyes shining, crowing how she had on her work underpants and she was ready to help dad NOW!

Speaking of underpants, we pretty much have resorted to wearing just underpants around the house.  It's hard for mom to enforce any sort of clothing rule because let's be honest, more clothing=more laundry and that's the last thing I'm incentivized to increase. I am super mean and insist that they wear both shoes and underpants if they are going to ride their bikes outside. I know, I know, "Tiger Mom."

Jed has his own bedroom now and it's nigh impossible to get him to put the comic books down and go to sleep.  Last night I caught him at 9:45 PM with the light on.  Then this morning I got the crankiest sad-faced pouty pants ever, ugh.

We went to a super fun and completely empty pool today.  There was a small toddler-sized frog water slide.  Zane went completely nuts over this thing.  He and Zoe ran and slid for an hour straight, they must have gone down that slide 3,000 times. Every single time Zane would shout at the top "Hi, Mom! Here comes ZANY!" and then when he got to the bottom he would come and excitedly inform me "Mommy, dis froggy slide is just right for ME!"  He is too cute for words, I can't stop kissing that busy little brown body.

Meanwhile, cranky tired Jed groused and complained at length through the whole trip, which lasted all of two hours. Even going down the big water slide by himself only lifted his scowl for a bit. Then when Dad got home, he raved and raved and raved at length about how it was the BEST DAY AT THE POOL EVER.  Mom had a hard time restraining her eye rolls, though she did send several same-table-dinner-texts to Dad informing him that all children would be having an early bedtime tonight.

I have 50 pounds of peaches sitting on my floor, a refrigerator full of squash, an overflowing and somewhat neglected garden, an barely-started basement refurbishment in a vast state of disarray, and I find all I want to do is go sit at the pool with my kids and hug their little brown baby perfection and then come home and take a nap.  This has been a deliciously luxurious summer!