The End of Summer - Wednesday

Okay so the week is going faster and faster and yet time seems to be slowing down.

Really...

Summer heat has finally settled on our mountaintop and it is suffocating me so I'm forced to stay inside...inside the house, the store, the car...where air conditioning is sending out its cool breezes that keep me sane.

I know I should not complain. My friends and relatives in Louisiana and Texas have been sending me messages on Facebook to stop bragging about the wonderful temperatures we've had this summer. But the summer is ending and NOW we get hot weather?

The crickets are chirping so slowly you can hear their heartbeats in between each chirp; the birds have all gone silent; and there are no children playing outside after school. It is pretty lonely on our street.

I remember one very hot summer in Houston just before school started and the kids were bored stiff and getting on each other's nerve and completely destroying what little bit of mind I had left. They were doing anything and everything to stay occupied and although I tried to wipe this out of my memory I was reminded today of what happened one afternoon when I used what I thought was the ultimate last resort comment:

"I have had it up to here (pointing to that spot just under my chin); now go to your rooms and don't come out until your FATHER comes home." Like that was going to do any good. My husband wasn't due home for several hours thanks to a two-hour commute, the threat was an empty one and my kids at the young age of middle and elementary school knew it.

But it did give me some peace and quiet for a little while...and then it got too quiet.

I remember hearing some noises that seemed out of the ordinary so stepped outside onto the patio only to see the neighbor's cat walking along the roof line between the garage and house. I thought it odd, but the heat was horrible and so I retreated back into the house in the cool of my bedroom to read a book behind closed doors.

And like most mothers I came to my senses and realized I couldn't punish my kids forever so I decided to go upstairs and check on them. I found the youngest son asleep in his bed, the room dark and cool as he had drawn the curtains to keep out the sunlight. And I found the door to my oldest son's room closed. I guessed he and my middle son were inside the room. This was before the days of personal computers, TVs in bedrooms and cell phones so I had to ask myself what were they doing?

I knocked and opened the door to find them sitting on the floor surrounded by a horrible mess of crushed raw eggs. They said the mean girls next door threw the eggs into the room from the outside. There was a flat roof outside the big double window and the screen was missing (later found on the ground below). The window was covered in raw eggs.

My gut reaction was to kill the girls next door - not really but almost. At the very least to go tell their parents what they had done. It was about this time that my husband arrived and when we didn't greet him in our usual manner he went upstairs looking for us. He in his most executive manner, standing in the door with his suit coat draped over his arm, tie pulled a little loose around his neck, and cold Budweiser in his right hand, (which he grabbed as soon as he came into the house), he took one look at the situation and surmised what had happened. The boys began to reiterate their story about the girls next door, however their father pointed out that their story was flawed.

The raw eggs were on the inside of the window, not the outside!

Needless to say I was furious all over again, but really was more embarrassed. Because I had let the heat of the day get to me; the tension of the children get to me; and then instead of finding some fun and calming solution to the situation I was in a way a contributor to the problem, closing myself off in my bedroom and giving the boys an opportunity to get the eggs from the kitchen and then spend an hour or so throwing them at the window enjoying them as they exploded all over my oldest son's room.

I came to realize that at least they kept the mess in the room, and everything would come clean (after I gave them rags and cleaning materials) and in the end the only thing that was hurt was my self-esteem as a mother. Of course they were punished and hopefully did not forget that what they did was inappropriate.

But in truth, the person who learned the most was me. Never ever let the heat of the day or any circumstance control my life. I can't control what happens - only how I respond. And there is great power in that.

So today in the dog days of summer, I welcome the heat and relax in the knowledge that it will pass. All I have to do is breathe deeply and remember the lessons I learned that hot day in Houston many years ago.