For the next two weeks, the Trifecta will span the ages of 6, 7, and 8.  It’s their favorite part of the year, with the 1 month Sara and Avery are the SAME age as a close second. Nothing is more important to children than age.  Well, age, and the possibility that a kingdom made entirely of candy exists within driving distance. I’m not bursting this bubble, because that dream is real, Man.

Right now the quality of their days are judged by the speed at which each of them can say M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I. After quietly listening to Sara and Avery’s feverish pitch over milkshakes one afternoon, Kelly gently chimed in, “Would it be more interesting to time I-P-P-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-M?”  Leave it to the baby.  We still can’t beat her at Quirkle, and now she’s taken over Scrambled States as our Local Champion. Don’t even try UNO.  Do…not…go…there. Unless you like being whipped by a 1st grader.

I love that learning about Space must include time for an impromptu dance party.  The photo above was an interpretative dance illustrating meteors becoming meteorites. Only at this age can you say, “Shooting Stars. Dance it out!  Go!”, and they understand exactly what you mean.

For all the planning and gaming of the summer, I’m nearly certain the day they’ll recall as their favorite is when Sara found an adolescent bird stuck in the basement window well.  My plan to rescue it with a bucket was pretty poor engineering.  A rope on the handle of that bucket would have been a vast improvement on my shoddy plan.  The girls were sure they could lift it out with their butterfly nets, and I was skeptical.

I was wrong. Bird saved. Greatest.day.ever. If you are aged six, seven, or eight, not much can beat saving a small bird with your own net.  If you’re 41, you’re just glad that thing didn’t die in the window well, waiting to be discovered by aforementioned children, leading to what would have been a kid-generated wake and funeral, taking up the better part of an afternoon. Afternoons involving shoe boxes, shovels, and dead animals are not my favorite, which isn’t very fair, considering I once spent an entire day burying a frog in a New Orleans style processional with my 10 cousins.  I was 7.  That’s what you do at age 7. At age 41, you chant, “Please don’t let this bird have weird diseases.  Please don’t let this dead, wild animal have exotic, lethal diseases…”

When they are not switching clothes, or walking out to run errands wearing mismatched shoes (because breaking up matching pairs and wearing them all at the same time is far more interesting)…they are trying to get wet.  Every day, the main question which must be answered at some point is, “How can we get wet, and will Aunt Orly let us do it while wearing our mismatched clothes and shoes?  Anyone can wear a bathing suit, but only the coolest of kids can figure out how to get soaked in their clothes.” And you know what’s more fun than getting a little wet in public?

Oh yeah baby…getting SOAKED.  Which is why log flumes never go out of style. This is the CRAZIEST thing in the world, walking around the city with wet clothes and hair.  The rebels of the century, right here.

I looked around the splash pad at the toddlers’ Mommies, and I remember how I carefully applied to sunscreen to these tots after wrangling them into suits in the sweaty Zoo bathrooms this side of 5 years ago, swearing my kids would never be the rednecks running through the sprinklers in their clothes.  How lazy are these Mothers of school-aged children?  To not even pack a towel?

And yesterday, as I laid down my cooler of water bottles (and sunscreen…I haven’t totally lost my edge), grateful I wasn’t lugging a diaper bag and a stroller as well, I told the girls to go for it. I’ll be happy to pick up my redneck Mommy Medal on the way out. I wanted to tell those stroller Mommies only one thing, “You have so, so much to look forward to. And they’ll be dry before we make it to the Cheetah exhibit.”

Six-Seven-Eight.  Just hang on until Six-Seven-Eight. And pack lighter, because unpredictability is half the fun. Happy Summer You’all, and as always, Godspeed.