summer play

The summer is slipping by, with work and camp days, home days with adventures, and lots of sibling togetherness.  The children are still really enjoying their camp experience (another blog post with pictures to come) and I am so grateful.

One interesting thing about the summer has been watching Sebastian's interests both expand and revert. During the school year, he was interested in soccer, reading, soccer, playing outside with friends, and that was about it. His many boxes of toys sat unused and I started to wonder if I should donate them to other children. But in the last few weeks, with more free time on his hands, he's been building expansive train track setups and cities, setting up his cars in various permutations and racing them around, building with wooden blocks, playing with Liesl's playdough, and constructing complicated Lego houses and cars. All of these unloved toys, getting a second chance! And then there are all of the pretend games that Seb and Liesl create - pretending to be dogs or cats, pretending to go to school, building pillow and blanket forts to play house. It's been really a joy to see him PLAY, and to watch my two children devote so much of their time to each other. They have been nearly inseparable all summer long, each willing to play the other's favorite games in order to remain together.  I don't know if there'll ever be another time that they are so close and so eager to play together all day, every day.

On Saturday afternoon we joined various friends for a party at the home of Anne and Cuong, to celebrate Cuong's birthday with a steel drum player and potluck picnic/BBQ/block party. Many of our closest Portland friends were there, and the children ran through the sprinkler and covered themselves in chalk while the dads grilled sausages and talked crazy talk (whiskey, welding, the apocalypse) and the moms fetched food, danced to the music, and talked about future hiking adventures. It was a great way to spend a lazy day, and I was once again struck by a feeling of intense gratitude for the community we have created here - for our luck in finding similarly-minded friends.

On Sunday afternoon Seb and Liesl played outside with their neighborhood friends - Anna, Nadine and Oscar, Charlotte, O.C. and Amara, Stella - they kicked and threw various balls, they pretended to be various animals, they chased each other around the streets, and they had a grand water fight with sponges, buckets, water balloons, foam squirt guns, and (of course) the hose.  I was inside cooking and cleaning and puttering around, and grinning to myself to hear the happy sounds of childhood outside.

We have spent the last two days enjoying the facilities at Clubsport, an enormous fitness center just south of Portland. Clubsport publishes a coupon every year allowing you 5 free days of membership; we used it last summer as well.  We've gone climbing on their rock wall (me with my mama friends; today the two children climbed), enjoyed the basketball courts in their huge gymnasium, and splashed in the outdoor pool. Some friends also signed up for the same week, so we've been able to see each other at the pool, and that's been fun.

And finally: one of the children's weekend projects was creating inspirational happy signs to hang around the house. They cut out paper rectangles, Seb wrote the words, and Liesl was in charge of tape delivery. Now we have two dozen signs that say: soccer!, strong girl gymnastics!, dance dance dance, let's go for a hike, go Steelers!, let's make muffins, blueberries, you're the best, I love you, let's go climbing, etc.. But my personal favorite is the sign they hung above our bed, which says: "Let's have fun!!".  We laughed so hard, and couldn't share the joke, and laughed some more.