I always feel like the least interesting faculty member when I write my summer post. Everyone else is hiking mountains, traveling to foreign shores, and I’m…well, I’m trying to make sure my kids don’t climb on the living room mantel or ride the dog. I figure that my experience is pretty universal when you have two kids not even in kindergarten yet, though, so I’m trying to be less neurotic about it. Besides, I got to relax and read and rest and read and play. So, it was a pretty successful summer if you think of it like that.
We'll pretend this was the beach.
We did not confine our summertime activities to artificial bodies of water, though. We also frequently visited the Shenandoah River to engage in my children’s favorite past time: throwing rocks into (or at) things.
Keeping little boys from leaping into the water is...challenging.
Of course, it wasn’t all throwing and splashing and destruction. We also took time out to create. I believe artistic endeavor and creative expression are important elements of a child’s upbringing, after all. And, what better way to show your children how highly you prize such things than engaging in creative play WITH them? Behold, my masterpiece!
It's a metaphor.
It wasn’t all play time and play dough at Casa des las Harrington, though. I also spent the summer completing home improvement projects I never get time to work on during the school year (and, no, MOM, I don’t mean “like the laundry”) (My mom doesn’t read the blog very often, I just hear her voice in my head a lot.) (If you don’t know what I mean by that, well, you will in a few years.). So, my house frequently looked like Sherwin Williams and Playksool got together and threw a rave.
This is the only in-process picture I took, and it's easily the most tidy the process ever got.
I even had some alumni come to help me with my painting! That was pretty exciting. Erin Dougherty, Lindsey Bauserman, and Rachel Stocker spent a Thursday painting my living room with me. They were richly rewarded with Melting Pot pizza. And, then, I spent some time getting the Sherwin Williams and Playskool elements to work together in a more harmonious fashion, so now my house looks a little more done and a little less hovel-esque.
I’m excited to get back to work, though, and that’s really the advantage of summer vacation. Every year, teachers get to approach their work with new eyes and fresh vigor. And, after a summer of painting, spackling, sanding, and cleaning, I am pretty excited to get back in touch with Aristotle and Plato!
