Slap of Spring

Today it was 80 degrees. Yup.

We went to the park at 4PM and stayed until 6PM when we heard the playtime-ending slap that comes almost inevitably after two hours of six boys running rampant in a playground on their first shirtless day of Spring.

I'd just heard Mom2 in our group tell her son in the sandbox to "Wait your turn with the hoe," (there was a plastic yellow one being passed around. Honest.) before sand flew, bare feet ran, and the day ended with the attack (most likely provoked) in the tunnel between slide one and slide two.

It wasn't all raucous though.

I sat out the soccer coaching thing I usually do for the boys on Tuesdays today due to my double quad muscle pulls (lovely). During the time when I would normally be telling player one to stop pouncing on player two, I was instead sitting on the bench next to a field of green grass and tiny white flowers, eating a Clementine from Trader Joe's and actually feeling too warm in my T-shirt. Distant sounds of the ice cream truck music were floating through my brain and I nearly told everyone I thought I heard it until I realized this would cause a riot. Lucky call, since the frozen sugar caddy never materialized.

Just about at that could-it-get-any-better-than-this moment, my two boys ran up with hands full of petals. "Mommy!" W said with a big smile on his face, "I picked you so many flowers because I love you so much."

I bent over and kissed him, which he actually responded to, and I nearly cried. Then B came up and handed me a few of his own flowers. "I love too, Mommy," he said. "Me too." He arched his face up for a kiss just like his brother had given (sometimes this following big brother in all things ain't so bad), and I was just about the happiest I've ever been.

I could go on, but I don't want anyone to vomit. Let's just say I'm already cursing the rain that will surely come back before this state of constant sunshine bliss (interrupted of course by slaps, hoe fights and tantrums) returns for all of summer.