Summer is winding, winding, winding down.

The strength of the sun wanes and the chill in the air grows.

My girls are growing, growing, growing up.

Yesterday I was up early to interview a woman with non-verbal processing disorder at 7am. We talked about her learning disabilities and her strengths. I am growing into a different person.

This morning I hear the coffee pot click while the dogs sleep and I am trying to soak in the few school’s-out-for-summer mornings that are left. Soon my eldest will be in high school. My youngest will be in 5^th grade.

I just read a sentence about a woman who was happy when her children were off to college. I’m not there. I’m instead in this place where I’m relishing my relationships with my daughters, in awe of the closeness that summer brings. How the lack of school pressure leaves so much room for just being. For watching “Grease” and telling my girls how I wasn’t allowed to watch this movie when I was a kid. How Chris and I note that the mores of the 70s are tacked on to teenagers in the 50s in this movie. How Stockard Channing looks like she’s 30 but she’s playing a high school senior. How we’re watching the second half of the movie but my 14-year-old isn’t here. She’s with her friends, right where she’s supposed to be.

Later the teen arrived home just to ask if she can sleep over at her friend’s house. And even though I was half asleep before she arrived, the air around her and her friends lights me up. I’m awake and remembering why teenagers are awesome. They come alive at night with their energy. I laugh as they fill my house with silliness. My teen needs her ear drops for swimmers ear placed in her ear canal while her friends surf the internet and chat with me. I am wrapped in the loveliness of summer.

This morning the sun pushes its August light through the blinds on my windows. My tween sleeps in. I sit here and relish summer before it leaves and school arrives. This is why I haven’t posted on my blog. I knew you’d understand.