Building those summer memories

QUITE a day yesterday.  We had the end-of-swim-team picnic and pool party.  Started out well, with kids running hither and yon and eating water ice, parents sitting in the shade chit-chatting.  Then, just as I started to check my voice mail to find out why Steve isn't there yet, Julianna came over the hill, wailing and clutching her mouth.  She'd gotten pushed on a slide and chipped her bottom front teeth.  She's screaming in pain and panic.  I got the adreneline rush and couldn't even remember my phone number to dial home.  Ben came up wailing.  He'd gotten locked in the bathroom and there was a huge spider in there and he was terrified.  My head was just spinning.  Comfort this one!  Comfort that one!  What do I DO?  Luckily (for me and for him) Steve showed up right then and helped me sort it all out.  Got everyone home (get Lily out before something happens to HER!), called the on-call dentist.  Steve took Ben and Lily to the pool.  I took Julianna to get some Motrin (dentist says to just give her that for now, come in the next day) and pick up the hamsters that we'd taken to the mall for adoption day.  She was sobbing and drooling into a cup b/c it hurt too much to swallow.  I got her the pain meds and a bottle with a sports top so she could squirt water down her throat.  She was then able to swallow, but had to make a slurping noise like the NooNoo.   I was trying not to leap out of my skin and take off down the street.  Finally Motrin kicks in, hamsters get home (one dwarf got adopted and we brought home two new teddy bear hamster fosters!  Yay, we missed the full-size hammies).  Julianna and I went to the pool.

Perfect pool day.  Ben is thrilled at his swimming progress.  As am I.  He was a total freak in the water at the beginning of the year.  Now he is doing the breast stroke.  Most of the community is there.  Everyone is happy b/c swim team is over and we don't have to have kids to the pool at 8 am.  I'm thrilled that Julianna was in no danger of making the All Star team.  THEY have to have two hours a day of practice this week.  Losers.  It's a gorgeous day, we're all feeling happy so we decide to go to Uno's for dinner with Bev and her kids.  We imagine that we're a Big Love family.  I'd like to think I'm Barb, butI'm totally Nicki.  Ben loses a Lego bit under the table, I crawl around sweeping a straw under the table base, but Brooke finds it.  All is well.

Back home and then down to the Donald's for a bonfire.  I'd ordered 50 glow necklaces from Sure-Glow which got me 100 free glow bracelets.  Twenty bucks.  I don't know another way to buy that much fun for that little money.  The kids just festooned themselves with them.   They were thrilled to have as many as they wanted.  They put on a show for us with much discordant made-up music and falling down the hill and twirling of glowing strings.  Honestly, it was the trippiest thing I've seen since college.  The adults had them on as well.  We'd brought champagne, Bob made rum punch.  S'mores a plenty.  Really, how much nicer does a summer memory get?  Minus the broken teeth and the spider in the bathroom?