solstice come back

I was pretty low when I didn't get to see my sister.  But, alas, the next day the sun came out again.  The next day, it was still summer.  The next day, the kids and I had days upon days of slow moving, organic morphing, from one random activity to the next -- the art, the garden, the kitchen, the neighbors, the fairy houses, the hockey sticks.  It's a busy life. 

So even without my sweet sissy, I had to put my party pants back on.  It was my first week of summer.  My BFF was having a rockin' 40th bash on the lake.  There were toasts to plan (I wrote a rap...I pulled it off...it was rad), dishes to make, swimsuits to pack.  So we move through disappointment and meet the new day with gratitude for all we have.  Sounds like a plan. 

It's pretty darn lovely to have all of your closest friends and their children and husbands all gathered in one spot for twenty four hours.  The lake glows like a promise and the children race from the zip-line to the paddle board and back, hands sticky with popsicles.  It's a damn good life.  Not to pound this out one more time but, hot dang, I'm a lucky lady. 

At the center of all this summery goodness is the insane connection I'm feeling to both of my kids.  They are so lovely to be around.  I think this is the first summer that I can really say that with absolute conviction.  They are just both so much more human, so rational, so easy to hang with.  Soli still has his moments but he moves through them so quickly, one jaunty foot in front of the oEther.  Tonight Eliana was out to dinner with a friend and Soli and I sat and ate together on the deck, just the two of us.  He spend the morning at gymnastics space camp and good golly did he have lots to say about the moon.  And rocket ships.  And aliens.  His vocabulary is developing so beautifully.  Later tonight he told Eliana that her chalk drawing was, "Absolutely wonderful."  I wonder where he got that...

Eliana just moves from friend to friend, from play date to park date to neighborhood wackiness.  She's so friendly and adaptable, so emotionally tuned in and kind.  I'm really, really proud of all she represents.  She partied hard at the lake.  She was insane on this zip-line obstacle course, her little body soaring above and then dropping effortlessly back to earth.  The same with the board.  She just loads up and heads out into the lake, no problem.  Magical moments to be sure.  I woke up on Sunday morning to my kids asking if they could go on a nature walk with their buddies.  Six little girls and Soli wandered into the woods with my girlfriend Mary leading the charge.  Little Lia had made them all nature walk crowns and they headed into the green, their little heads wrapped in paper bands.  My clan was representing and I was so thankful that my kids get to be in that mix.

So we just keep on moving forward.  Jeff and I leave on Thursday night to take our first trip alone in over seven years.  Seven years!  The last time was our, "Babymoon", me massively pregnant with Eliana in Whitefish.  Hot dang.  Another lifetime ago.  We are so fortunate that Roseann will be able to watch the kiddos, that they feel safe and comfy enough with her to let us leave.  We will happily celebrate an old friends wedding in the Carmel Valley, norther California in all her misty glory spread out before us.  It doesn't even seem real.   Anxiety and anticipation and just glory in the now all mixed together in one zesty cocktail!

So we roll through our solstice, roll into a new season.   I don't seem to have pictures that really capture how swell those two little people are, but I'll have to settle for these little moments, these sweet dreams.