By Leslie Lindsay

I haven’t quite gotten my summer feet yet.  You see, mentally I am still stuck in March–maybe early April.  Why?!  I am not really sure.  Time has a way of sneaking up on you–damn, that linear time thing!  So, when my darling daughters said good-bye to the school year and hello to summer, I wasn’t quite ready.

My skin is still painfully white, speckled with cellulite and my toenails are definitely in a need of a coat some bright sunny shade.  I have no idea where the pool bag is hiding (well, I do now) and my legs are still a bit, well…amazonian.

Any “good” mom would have been joyfully counting down the days till summer break, scouring the house for all of the essential pool items–perhaps even making a trip to the store  (ahem, Target) for new summer accourements and just waiting, waiting for that last day of school so the kids could go to the pool.

Alas, I didn’t really do anything in preparation of the last day of school.  Save the last wail–mine, not theirs–as the school doors closed for the next 70 or so days.

Today, the chaos met me head-on.  I was tired of seeing things from Easter still littering my backdoor.  I was done with the backpacks full of a year’s worth of school supplies sitting idle in their cubbies in the laundry room.  The Mother’s Day cards still on display, not to mention the preschool graduation cards flocking our mantle…well, they all had to go!  I was ready.  I took charge.  I evaluated.  I tossed.  I saved.  I made notes on the back of cards, projects, stories, photos.  I made a pile of “to be laminated” (yep, that’s me–big nerd that I am!) and I even found the pool bag, complete with too-small cover-ups (theirs this time, not mine…despite the cellulite).

When it was all said and done, I felt better.  I looked back and thought, “Gee, I can breathe a little more.”

It’s not really finished.  I still need to compile things in the first grade journal–loose papers worthy of saving for some rainy day when my daughter asks, “I wonder what I did in 1st grade?”  Alas, I can haul out a tub or a binder and say, “Here!  Look!  It’s all been saved.”  (Well, maybe not all–but you get the idea).

And then we went to the pool.  And just when I think I have it all figured out, I realized I should have brought along some shampoo so I could just wash their hair in the locker room showers, in their swimming suits no less so I won’t have to mess around with it at home.  And then we had a little meltdown because it couldn’t possibly be time to go already.  (When you have two fair-skinned redheads, it’s always time to get out of the sun).

I am still not really sure if I have my summer feet. 

And that is what is in my brain today, Thrusday June 7th 2012.