It always comes as a shock, doesn’t it? You’ve barely recovered from a store’s AC blast, a jolting contrast from the peak-summer heat, when you see them: back-to-school supplies.
No matter your feelings about school — as a kid back in the day or a parent today — the tidy displays of pocket folders, three-ring binders and No. 2 pencils serve as the harshest of reminders that summer’s nearly over.
When we were kids, we lamented the dwindling days of summer by whining, complaining and refusing to go to bed (“but it’s still light out”). But as parents, we know better. We know to live it up. To squeeze every last drop of summer and maximize all the sunny pleasure possible.
So this month, let’s do this summer thing.
Let’s eat dinner on the deck and pack picnics for the park. Say yes to every invitation to a pool party or splash-pad playdate. Get ice cream for any possible reason.
Let’s check off all the summer bucket-list items that have been on the to-do list since June — the special hikes, the boat outings, the big adventures.
And let’s seek out the simplest summer pleasures with new urgency. Running through sprinklers. Riding bikes around the neighborhood. Spotting butterflies. Catching fireflies. Eating watermelon until our faces and hands are a sticky mess. Getting corn-on-the-cob stuck in our teeth. Staying up late around the fire pit.
Because it’s not just for August that we need to do these things. It’s for when fall sets in and schedules become more rigid and all those school supplies get put to use. It’s for when a chill creeps into the air and we can warm ourselves with the knowledge that when summer was here, so were we.