"Lemonade and Popcorn" Summer

I named this summer after I cancelled the camping trip.

For the past two years—which, to my children, means “forever and always”—we’ve gone on an early-summer camping trip to the Sand Dunes. This included two nights in the great outdoors (with an air mattress and a pack-n-play the second year, because I’m no fool) and a full day playing on a towering dune slope with a shallow snow melt creek rushing by along the base. This is a perfect set up for everyone, because when we get hot on the sand we just splash down into the creek. Well, this past winter, our state had about a tenth of the snowfall that it usually does (approx.), and the creek may not be there at all. Also, the mosquitos might hatch early because of the wonky water level, and that’s just not a game I’m going to play.

The children did not like this explanation, but children do not have to like all (or any!) explanations. I am perhaps projecting my own disappointment on to them, because, truthfully, the person in this family who is most emotionally attached to those dunes is me. Also, the timing of the trip gave me this trump card against “We never do ANYYYYYYTHING,” which sounded a lot like, “Actually, we have done something this summer, don’t you remember going to the Sand Dunes?” We’re going to do a “lake day” up in the mountains instead, which will be good, but not the same.

So, knowing that there would be no camping trip, I had to come up with a different response for “We never do ANYYYYYTHING” and its close kin, “Aren’t we doing anything FUN today?” And it needed to be quite easy. Which is why I started responding to those afternoonish pleas with, “Well, you can have lemonade and popcorn.”

Perhaps it’s because my children are still very young (even according to the A.A. Milne standard of six or under; we’re still mostly in that boat), perhaps it’s because of the horrific sugar content of that powdered lemonade, but this response has been accepted with general revelry. It takes about ten minutes to get the kernels popped and the powder mixed and the cups found (why are the cups always missing?). Then the children are banished to the backyard because we have a household rule that you can’t eat popcorn inside unless you can vote.

It mixes up the afternoon a little bit, it gets them outside, it’s ever so slightly special, and it’s easy. The popcorn could be pretzels or peanuts, the lemonade could be iced peach tea.

I feel a lot of pressure to make the summer Very Special, especially for the school-aged children. I do not think I’m alone in this. My heart seizes when anyone slaps a number on how many months or days or hours I have until these six kids leave me for their “real lives.” I am also now potty training a toddler, and working part time, and trying to clean the bathroom with more frequency, and serving up some food that isn’t tortillas or noodles at least once a day. “Special” is going to have to take place within those parameters.

I do not think I’m alone in haranguing myself with shifting expectations about what could possibly constitute “special” for my children, or in continually holding the bar higher than reality. And, truly, truly, I say to you, I do not have time for these mind games.

You don’t either.

I will say, “You can have popcorn and lemonade,” again this afternoon. There are three baby robins in the nest on the back light, five bicycles wheeling around in the cul-de-sac, dozens of popcorn kernels scattered on the patio, and many more things that will become Very Special as I treasure them up.

bird is the word, as they say

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On the Calendar: Corpus Christi Sunday

The Gospel for Sunday is John 6:51-58 🦅. What caught me this time was the:

Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you."

The Sunday Gospel last week included John 3:16, and in the verses preceding about being born again, Jesus uses the same phrase with Nicodemus: “Amen, amen, I say to you—” It’s been interesting to watch “Jesus dialogue” over the course of the year.

This coming week we are much obliged to St. Barnabas (June 11), martyr and professional come-alongside-er who was probably one of the first people to forgive St. Paul.