Bliss

To be a child in the summer is what my growing-up memories are filled with. Now I have growing-up memories of my own children to add to that memory file, and many of them are filled with summer sun and adventure.
It was hot yesterday. We pulled the green plastic circle sprinkle into the middle of the crispy, browning lawn and went to work at the business of cooling off. Within an hour, we had created puddles of mud and dying grass across the yard. We had danced like fairies and crawled like kittens and challenged each other to stand in the "perfect center", daring the icy cold stream of water to touch our bottoms. We were still warm, but we didn't care. It was summer and the sprinkler was on, and soon - right about dinner time - the tinkling bells of the ice cream truck would remind us what was really important on this hot summer day. Then, we would grab wet hands and loose change and gallop through the gate to seize the frozen delight and meet the neighbors who had heard the sirens call of summer.