Steven had a buddy over yesterday after gym class. The plan was to pack backpacks with food and water, and for us to ride bikes and playground hop all afternoon. It was hotter than, as my dad would call it, "billy blue hell" here ~ and to my way of thinking, the perfect day for adventuring...

We took off about noon and headed to the trails first. It's a great place, dirt-bike hills originally built by the American Motocross Association in the trees next to the bike path ~ AMA abandoned it and it's been taken over by the kids who live here in town. They've sculpted even more treacherous peaks and dips, and use their bikes on it to etch out the curvy paths into the woods... a marvelous place for a boy or girl to go bike-flying and jumping. The boys rode them at first, but then abandoned their bikes to run the hills, jumping one to the next and yelling various commands to one another, "Let's say..."
"Ok, you be..."
"I'll pretend that I'm... and you pretend that you..."

I can only slightly comprehend their imaginings now. I try to pull from memory what they seem with such ease to create with their minds, stimulated probably by being so naturally part of the new world around them; but from within my own weathered mind, it's just a brief recaptured twinge of the thrill they know so readily.... and it is with me for less than a breath of a moment, then is gone. But it is, and was with me long enough to remember not interfere too much with them as they do what it is they do best. I did listen, just a little, to hear the conversation that I sometimes consider that I may be too old now to distinguish because it was one that often seems only children can understand; a language of mythological creatures lost in the woods and army men, evil warlords, hiding out and fighting heroes...

Afterward, we took off to the next playground and ate some of the fodder there that we brought along, then rode bikes around the path, riding to another park after that... The boys were pouring sweat and soon begging me for some library time (air conditioning and X-Box :)). So we wandered over there next. They guys played games while I gathered a stack of books and magazines to meander through...

We left there after an hour or so and went to another playground, a park closer to our home and when we arrived, Steven pointed out, "Here is your sleeping bench mommy.." And it was. I've been taking snoozes there for a long time. Next to it there are toddler swings, and as I took a load off and laid down upon it once again, I was remembering having two little ones in each of the swings, and pushing one with one hand, and then one with the other, a back and forth double pendulum, in the days when napping was a far away fantasy. I've earned my snoozes :).

I fell into a soft, summer-y-like slumber, not asleep, more a heightened, but deep, contented rest, and fully aware that the boys were kneeling up on the two stone pedestals, each on either side of the park sign, pretending they were it's guarding lions. Their stillness lasting a full minute or so, before they discovered the guy who was working on a house across the street was not convinced; so then, they walked across the wall to the pinecones and hurled them at some invisible, more accomodating enemy... I hollered with closed eyes to the guys, "Hey Fellas, we have time for about 15 minutes of creeking, you up for it?" Oh yeah, no need to ask boys twice about trudging around in dirty, slimy water; they said they were ready.

It took about 10 minutes to assure Steven's friend that it was a-ok to get his shoes wet, and then, I let them go through the drain tunnel under the road and they came back with a turtle, already named: "Joey." Steven put it in his front shirt pocket for the ride back to the house and we found a bucket to put it in.

As we were loading up the truck with his buddy's bike, pack, and soaked shoes, the boy who was not quite ready for it all to end said to me, "Karen, when Steven doesn't have school again someday soon, can we do this again?"
I said to him as I jumped off the tailgate, "Steven never has school."
He was like, "I mean, when he has a day where he doesn't have to do schoolwork.."
I said, "Honey, everyday is like that for Steven. There is no schoolwork. His life is an extended adventure."
The kid was like, "Oh."
And then a thoughtful reply, "Well, I think you need to talk to my mom about that because that's a really good idea."