And so it goes…

So now that Harry’s 5, and summer is upon us, it would seem that I need to prepare (sooner rather than later) for a new set of rules. While Kindergarten still looms a few months away, which I still need to figure out how to deal with all of the bus-riding and huge new school (although I’m admittedly feeling much better about it all now that I know about ¾ of his soccer team will be in the same building, and they’ll all be looking for each other for sure), it would seem that the first weekend at the pool holds a similarly new paradigm for him…. and for me.

At one point, while I was unsuccessfully trying to calm Miss A down and get her to nap for a bit (duh… WAY too much going on there for that), we took a quick walk around the grounds, suitably ooh-ing and aah-ing at all of the new foliage and running kids. When we got back to our chairs, Kim was sitting there and Harry was very much not. I gave it a minute or 2, but no return, and certainly no concern on the faces of anyone else at the table.

Um… Where’s Harry?

He’s off playing on the tennis court with TJ and his friends…

Ooooooooooooookay… how’d I miss that one, and why’s he over there by himself? Does he have shoes on? Where’d he get a tennis racquet from? Is he allowed over there without a parent? Where’d he get a ball from? What are they doing? Etc, etc, etc….

Somewhere along the line, the little guy dropped the need to hold my hand and be reminded to walk around the pool deck…

Maybe it was the day before, when he and Tyler were playing ball safely in the backyard, when whilst manning the grill, I literally caught him out of the corner of my eye whipping around the corner, through the gate, down the driveway, and quickly out of view. Instant response was “WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOA, where are you going????” which was even more quickly met with an overly calm response from Kim, “he’s going out to get the ball… I told him to go, and to be careful…. You need to let him go and do things himself.”

Cue the instant tail-between-the-legs, “oh… ok.”

I thought I had until September to get on that bus… apparently not. It’s also apparently not enough lately that Ainsley is already doing everything she can to keep up with big brother and his friends, climbing up, sliding down, running after as much as she can, which is obviously way more than I can handle.

Kim seems to think it’s all quite hilarious, and does her best to push both of them just that little bit further (but only after she’s made certain I’m looking), and I guess it all points to the larger point of it all, that I need to laugh about it all just a little more.



Eph that.