Summer Bucket List

As of Monday, we have a kindergartner. We can't believe he's reached this point in his life, but man, time is a thief and here we are. While we are only two days in, he's so happy and excited to be there, so while the rest of us adjust to his absence each day, I take a lot of comfort in knowing he's having fun.

Prior to school starting, we've checked off a final summer fling bucket list with all of his requests, including trips to the National Air and Space Museum, American Indian Museum, and River Farm.

We did all things aquatic-pool days, Yards Park, riding the jetty to the District Wharf, and Shake Shack lunches.

We went to the Montgomery County Fair and watched the pig races, ate corn dogs, rode some rides, slid on giant slides, and mounted very expensive farm equipment.

We adventured to Teddy Roosevelt Island, lunched at Cortina's east coast cousin, and played tennis in the backyard.

And we made our way to a really cool park/spray ground complete with carousel on the eve of school, with another Shake Shake dinner date the night before.

It'd be cool if time slowed down now.

The final weeks of summer

Today marks the final two weeks of summer before Henry starts school for the next 17 years and I cannot believe it. We made a bucket list to adventure as much as we can these last ten days and I'm reminded how much I've enjoyed being home with him these first few years.

This weekend he got to spend both days on dates with Scott and I. For my day, we headed to the National Gallery of Art for their Art Investigators program-a story about an artist and then a look at their work. It was AMAZING. Reminded me so much of "Meet the Masters" from elementary school. In this session, the kids focused on Edgar Degas and his only publicly exhibited sculpture, "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen Years."

These are drop-in programs and we missed the first session by minutes, so we hung out in their new Education Art Center for an hour, where I found a book about the sculpture, then we drew her with some really cool crayon/marker hybrid. We then made our way back to our session start time and while he was initially reluctant to this idea of mine, easily became fascinated thanks to the engaging leader and interactive participation. They listened, held the pose like the ballerina, and then got to model their own creation with clay to close.

This was the last session for the summer but I'll definitely be looking for it when it resumes in the fall.

"Mom, do we know this guy in the painting?"

We also went blackberry and peach picking at one of our favorite places-Homestead Farms. Since Jo was really into strawberry picking in May and well, eating sweet things in general, I figured this was right up her ally. We did it last summer with friends and what little time we'll have been here in retrospect, I like to think of it as a little tradition.

It's also been at least six months since we visited the zoo, so it was really Josephine's first time truly getting it. She loved seeing the animals and the giant cats were especially vocal, and the seals playful.

We took a family hike on Teddy Roosevelt Island and were treated to a family of deer crossing nibbling nearby and eventually crossing our path, and also returned to the National Botanical Garden since it opened in spring for some afternoon fun.

Kids starting school used to excite me-less crowds! Less traffic! And now my kid is one of them. I really feel like I just graduated sixth grade myself.