Old Fashioned Summer

When I was a kid, there was not a lot of structure to our summers. I didn't go to day camp until I was in middle school and even then it was just a week, like VBS. Most of my summer involved just playing.

I remember playing in the forest behind my neighbor's house, pretending we were in Herself the Elf's kingdom. I remember riding my bike with my sister and our friends to the church (because for some reason there was a church right in the middle of our otherwise residential neighborhood). We would do races on our bikes, play cops and robbers and make up stories that the church was a castle.

There would be reading in the shade and playing with toys in the cool basement when it got too hot. We'd run through the sprinklers and just have fun. This seems to be an oddity these days.

Seemingly, a lot of kids have a lot of scheduled activities during the summer now. Camp and lessons seem to abound. But Emily is having a very old fashioned summer.

She's been spending her days playing outside with the little girl next door and other kids in the neighborhood. Usually by the time she gets in at night she smells like dirt and sweat which is actually not unpleasant - it sends me back to my own childhood.

Later in the summer she will go to our church's version of VBS. And she will be taking a week's worth swimming lessons but mostly she'll be playing outside, making up stories, getting dirty and just having fun.