Summer is not over

Just a quick post before bedtime. We are gradually adjusting to being home, vacation being over, and summer not being over. Rocket Boy is being especially nice to me because I am depressed about it all. It occurred to me that living in Ridgecrest is like living in Australia, someplace where summer has the horrid weather and you look forward to winter because then you'll be able to do fun stuff. We keep talking about all the things we're going to do when it gets cooler, maybe round about November or so. We'll go to Death Valley, we'll ... go to Death Valley again, we'll ... go to other places in the desert. The Salton Sea, maybe. I have a poster of a bit of the Salton Sea, I've had it since college. It hangs on the wall in our family room here. I wonder if we really will do all those things. When will the work get done? When will we buckle down, as one is supposed to in the winter? Do people in Australia buckle down in the summer? Should I be buckling down now, staying inside and working, not worrying about the things I can't do?

Today, thinking about it being 10 degrees cooler, predicted high of 102 not 112, I decided the boo bears and I could go for a morning walk. This was a mistake. It was very warm. The boo bears were excited at the prospect of a walk, presumably remembering all our lovely walks in the Bay Area, but they lost heart quickly. I cut the walk short, turned back halfway, hurried home for sippy cups of lukewarm water. The best part of the walk happened before it began: we were on the patio, getting the stroller organized, and a hawk flew through the backyard! I think it was a Cooper's Hawk, but I am not an accipiter expert, so could be wrong. The hawk landed on a nearby high wire, scaring away all the usual birds, then left.

This afternoon I gave up trying to be Good Mom, and just lay on my bed reading. The boos played fairly peacefully nearby for a while. Then they came over and dismantled my nightstand. Baby B looked at each book he removed, finally coming across a little coffee table book about the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse. He seemed to think this was a children's book (probably because of all the photos) and handed it to me with that desperate look that says "Please read this to me several times." I wonder whether this fascination with books will last. Having a board book read to one seems very different from reading a novel to oneself. I hope it transfers over. Reading is quite possibly my favorite thing in the entire world (walking is a little further down the list) and it would be nice to be able to share that with my children.

Something that I hope will NOT last is the boos' fascination with a certain gift bag that I was given on my birthday (I think it had an embroidered dishtowel in it). If you press a button on the bag, it plays "Happy Birthday" twice. The babies adore it and bring it to me to push the button many times every day.

Thinking, gloomily, about how we seldom get exactly what we want, I'm imagining a future where the (all grown-up) babies purchase singing gift bags for every holiday occasion but never crack open a book.