{"id":545,"date":"2011-10-01T18:46:32","date_gmt":"2011-10-01T22:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=545"},"modified":"2011-10-01T18:46:38","modified_gmt":"2011-10-01T22:46:38","slug":"the-remains-of-the-last-september-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=545","title":{"rendered":"The Remains of the (Last September) Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Yesterday morning, on the last day of September, I awoke to this. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m growing to love the look of the morning sun on the marsh at high tide, and the fall colors work well, I think, against this backdrop.<\/p>\n

Mid-morning, baby-girl and I took a short field trip with her preschool class to a dentist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office. It was great fun to see a bunch of preschoolers all vying for time with the gadgets simultaneously.<\/p>\n

While waiting for the dentist to finish with a patient, we took the kids outside and played Duck, Duck, Goose, during which I observed that not one of the eighteen children had developed anything close to a poker face. Midway through this game, a man came out from a nearby office and asked us our business there, in decidedly curt terms, bless his heart. The director explained, and he excused himself with a stern, decidedly disagreeable nod, bless his heart. We all looked at each other as he walked away, shrugging. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but notice he was wearing pants a color I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll call salmon-gone-quite-amiss, so I blessed his heart, figuring he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in great need of it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After eating what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll call dinner for lack of a better description, I took a quick walk on the beach.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Small groups of people lined the beach, lingering over the last hour of light. I wanted to sit down in the sand and enjoy that last hour myself, but duty called, in the form of a high school football game. We had promised the small people we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d take them, so I hurried home instead.<\/p>\n

When we arrived at the game, I had to laugh. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been many years since I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve attended a football game, and the thing I always disliked about football when I lived in Chicago was the fact that, by this point in the season, it would get chilly at night. She Who Does Not Like Cold did not enjoy sitting still in the bleachers for three hours, trying not to look morose about the frigid state of my Friday nights. Last night, however, it was short-sleeves and shorts weather, even as we were leaving the game. I was in my element, and even thought this could change my thinking about football.<\/p>\n

The small people had fun. Some of the elementary-aged boys started their own game on the sidelines at one point, so I got my first taste of watching another kid tackle my kid to the ground with some moves that I, a lover of sedentary social activities, felt were unnecessary, and I worked at restraining myself from giving the kid a dose of his own medicine, as they say. I swear I saw LCB do that thing where he deliberately forces his jaw not to clench.<\/p>\n

My daughter now wants to be a cheerleader too, after she watched the little girls come out and do a couple of cheers at half-time. So, since she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be old enough to cheer with the little girls by next fall, this time next year I may have to restrain myself again as I see bigger girls throwing my baby high in the air.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u009d tell me this stuff is natural.<\/p>\n

Then again, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153they\u00e2\u20ac\u009d told me one of my favorite misnomers of all times, that only wealthy retirees live at the beach. So the jury\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still out on that one. Natural or not, however, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure there will be years of this in my future, because all three of them loved every minute of it.<\/p>\n

After the game, we came home, made chocolate milkshakes, and let the small people stay up late watching a movie. LCB and I went outside on our deck to talk. When we came back in to fill our wine glasses, the small people were sitting like this on the couch.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We both smiled and sighed simultaneously. I reached for my camera and LCB reached for the wine bottle. We stared at each other for a second, and then LCB said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Quick, sneak back out before they see us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Here I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m all wrapped up in this sweet little moment, and LCB\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ready to head for the hills.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the same galaxy, but vastly different orbits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning, on the last day of September, I awoke to this. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m growing to love the look of the morning sun on the marsh at high tide, and the fall colors work well, I think, against this backdrop. Mid-morning, baby-girl and I took a short field trip with her preschool class to a dentist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[573,571,572,105,100,465,570],"class_list":["post-545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islandlife","category-island-parenting","tag-fall-on-the-marsh","tag-high-school-football-on-an-island","tag-island-football","tag-island-life","tag-island-living","tag-island-mom","tag-last-day-in-september"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}