Our summers tend to be slower paced. We don’t schedule in that many events for our kids, preferring them to experience boredom and togetherness, coming up with their own fun. We usually make an overnight trip to Chicago or Cincinnati, and occasionally play tourist about our own city.  I do not deal well with hectic, frenetic days, but feel much happier with fewer items on my agenda.

This year our three boys are spending a week at a local farm camp in the mornings.  They are feeding pigs and chickens, learning some ecology, weeding the vegetable garden, and getting brown in the Indiana sun. Once home, and after lunch, they are outside again (I love this about them!).

Lately, A is either at the neighborhood basketball courts or on his bike. S often rides his longboard down the steepest hill in our neighborhood. Since G is not old enough, according to our guidelines, to leave the block unaccompanied, he opts for the backyard. Sometimes he plays with a brother, sometimes alone. Today after watching a bit of the EURO 2016, I kick a soccer ball with him all around our yard.

For not even six years old, that kid is really fast. He looks like someone has set an old VHS tape on fast forward. Honestly, I tire of that pretty easily, so I hide under our willow tree in hopes he will be inspired to join me in a calmer, more imaginative venture. He does.

“Let’s make a fort!” he exclaims. “And I’m going to paint dragons and pictures for the fort’s entryway.”

I slip and refer to it as a studio.  “It’s not an art studio,” G insists, “it’s the painting on the fortress walls.” I stand corrected.

G instructs me to collect the supplies while he lies against the tree, some of the unwieldy branches swishing across his legs. I let him tell me what to do…this time, and bring cardboard, tape, rope and paint on a plastic palette, along with a few brushes. G sits up, and asks me to help him tie the “canvas” to a willow tree branch.

He gets to work.

And this occupies him for twenty or thirty minutes.

Eventually he brings out his pop up tent and a couple of stuffed animals. It’s getting crowded under the willow. I have to crawl in to the tent first; he follows. And, so, one imaginative idea begets another.

It’s a beautiful summer afternoon.

The burdock and the nettle I preferred,

but best of all the silver willow tree.

Its weeping limbs fanned my unrest with dreams…

~Anna Akhmatova