I Survived the First Week of Summer!

Sometime around mid-winter I started to dread summer a little bit.  Summer is my favorite season in Chicago, but having three kids under five with no school had me worried.  Waylon naps twice a day which prevents us from frequently taking on very long outings.  Georgia is a handful because she needs more challenge and stimulation than I can sometimes provide.  I mean, I try, but I feel like there is so much focus on FOOD around here that it's impossible to squeeze an organized art project or whatever in between cleaning up from one meal and preparing the next.  (Georgia, when told that she could just have a lazy Sunday and rest all day because we did not have anything planned, responded in a panicked voice, "But what about meals?!") 

Never fear! Our first week of summer turned out to be great.

We had almost nowhere to be.
The kids had zero screen time.
We were finally off the road.
The weather was great.
I even took on a big adventure just in time for Father's Day weekend: taking the el with all three kids to go visit Joe at work.

(Now, mind you, I'm typing this while Waylon's napping, June is watching an episode of Sesame Street next to me, and Georgia is off at a morning nature camp at her school, so last week wasn't necessarily a routine I could keep up indefinitely, but still, it was encouraging.)

Oh! And how could I forget to mention what was probably the biggest key to making it work?  Georgia is reading.  Well, kinda sorta.  The funny thing I've noticed about learning to read is that the ability doesn't flip on like a switch, it happens gradually, with layoffs and missteps along the way, until one day you look down at your child, all cozy in the nest she made herself on the landing of the stairs three days ago (but refuses to take down - not that you'd really want her to), reading books to herself after hanging a sign on the wall for the cleaning lady, and you think to yourself, "Yep. We've got a reader here."

(Unless you are my niece Alice, in which case, yes, the ability flips on like a switch, and the child never sounds out a single word until one day she gets in the car and just starts reading an entire book out loud to her mom who nearly drives off the road as a result.  But I digress...)


{Sooooo excited and squealing as if we were on a ride at Disneyworld.}




{Going up.}

 
{Where the magic happens.}




{Happy Father's Day, Joe! They are lucky chickens, those girls.}


{The little dude abides, too.}




{Really, who doesn't bring their own sweet potatoes and corn on the cob to Corner Bakery?  Before you relentlessly mock me, um, we really needed to go to the store. Whatever - I know, there is a lot that is mock-worth in these pictures.}

{Not showing their underwear to the world was a struggle on the ride home.}




{Back to the nest.}

 


Georgia reading from Kate on Vimeo.
{I seem to have developed this habit of needing to show where each child is during any given video, as if Waylon or June might grow up one day and ask themselves, "WHERE WAS I?!", so my apologies for the shakiness of the ending of this film.}