Official end of summer

Labor Day 2006 is history. Tomorrow Hank gets on the bus and becomes a first grader. Life with afternoons filled with kid activities, bargaining to get out of quiet time, fighting with his sister, playing with his sister, deciding which park to go to, which friend to play with, and mid-afternoon YMCA activities is over. Changed forever.

Hank wants to be so grown up these days. He has the soundtrack for High School Musical that he loves. Occasionally he picks up my shuffle and listens to some of my stuff. He's learned the lyrics to Why Can't We be Friends by War and sings along to that. Grown up music.

Last night he wanted music on as he was falling asleep. He doesn't ask for music every night but every now and then he wants some. He had a couple of CDs to choose from on his shelf and then last night we found his old lullaby CD in the corner. That's the one he wanted. We talked about how it was the one I played at least three times a night when he was a new baby and he'd wake in the middle of the night. I told him I'd sit in the blue rocking chair at 2 a.m. and would reach over to the floor on the left side of the chair to press play.

"You would? What else did you do?"

"I'd rock you and feed you until you fell back asleep. You'd have your nee-nees."

"I DID?! Oh don't TELL me that! That's DISGUSTING! (Laughing) Did I go back to sleep? Then what did you do? Was Peggy there? She wasn't? Who's Ed.....wait a minute I remember Ed. He sleeped with me in my room....."

And so on.

It makes me so sad and so happy and so full of joy to hear all of those questions and all of those baby lullaby songs and feel all those memories. All at the same time.

Labor Day pictures are here.