I’m not sure if I have one specific memory that comes to mind when I think of summers from childhood. It’s more just that feeling of freedom and leisure. There were a lot of kids – mostly boys – on the street that I grew up on, and we spent our summers exploring the neighborhood on bikes or building elaborate cities out of mud in the open lot across the street from house. (I was a serious Tomboy out of necessity. My choice was to hang with boys or play solo.) Every evening after dinner we played games in the dark such as hide and seek, tag, etc.

Now that my girls are about the same age I was when I began forming summer memories, I think about what they’ll remember from their summers as a child. We spend a lot of days and the beach or the pool.
We play lots of board games and we go to the library and check out giant stacks of books. Will it be those things? Or will it be the bigger things like the vacations and road trips? Will it be the smaller things we do such as kidnapping Dad from work and taking him to lunch, or will it be the hours they spend playing imaginative games in their room with one another?

I guess I’m like most moms and hope that all of the big and little things add up to a library of good memories. It won’t be too many more years and they’ll be too busy in the summer to spend so much time together. As I write this, my youngest is singing her loudest and most offkey renditions of her favorite Taylor Swift songs for her big sisters who are laughing hysterically at her antics. I try to absorb every sound of their laughter now because these are the moments I’ll remember from their childhoods.

Question: What is your favorite memory from your summers as a child?