What Time Is It?

If you answered the title of this post by singing, "It's summertime! It's our vacation!" then maybe you've been subjected to one too many trips through the soundtrack of "High School Musical 2".

I feel your pain.

You know what else I feel? Summer! It is nipping on our heels here at The HomeFront Corp. My little workforce will be back at corporate headquarters full time, starting this Friday. They only have half-days until then, so we have officially changed our clocks to Summer Time.

If I'm being honest, we actually changed our clocks to Summer Time at the beginning of May. I'm sure my children's teachers have appreciated that, but we couldn't help it. We've all felt a sea change this year; togetherness has been the unspoken order of the past month, and it's been great.

In pondering my pronounced excitement for this summer, I realized that I have trouble even remembering the past few summers. Then it hit me, the reason for my haziness. I have been pregnant or post-partum for the past three summers.

A-ha.

Hello, sleep deprivation. Goodbye, will to do anything other than lie around in the air conditioning.

I have spent the last three summers either being so tired or so wretchedly "morning" sick that I wished the summer away. I spent a lot of time either stalling the kids' fun projects or putting the kibosh on them outright. I think I was not a lot of fun for anyone, although no one here said a thing.

So this summer I am not pregnant, and my little "baby" is a hulking sixteen months today (sniff!). I am good to go for some summer fun!

We have one big family beach vacation coming in July, for which we are very excited, but I hope the rest of the summer will be filled with day trips and Popsicles and water gun fights and barbecues and drive-in movies and jumping in pools and riding roller coasters and whatever else strikes our fancy.

For anyone else who may be summer-minded, here is one of Francie's piano exercises this week. It makes me think of tropical isles and fruity drinks with umbrellas, an unbeatable combination.

(This is especially for Laura, who may be lucky enough to hear this on a little ukulele in just about two weeks!)

Feel free to do a little hula around your living room. Why not? It's summer!

Francie is playing "Aloha Oe (Farewell to Thee)." This popular song is often played or sung for tourists to the Hawaiian Islands, and it was composed by the Islands' last queen, Lydia Kamekaha Liliuokalani.