Summer Solstice

It is not how much you do in a day, but how you savor it.  Today was a day full of rich moments.  We started the day looking out the window, noticing that there wasn't a lot of sunshine for this longest day of the year.  We sang the song Mr Sun and read the children's book  The Way to Start the Day by Byrd Baylor and illustrated by Peter Parnall. Then after a bit of playtime we went to a Fiddleheads program at the Arboretum.  As always it was a lovely walk filled with engaging activities for the boys.  They especially enjoyed becoming beavers and turtles and acting out their behaviors.  This activity really helped at a dinner time activity where the boys told Papa clues/ riddles of what animals we had learned about.  Dad had to guess.  "One of the animals had teeth." said T  "Cut down trees." Said S "Made dams."  Said T...."an Engineer?" said dad.

At dinner we also celebrated the solstice.  For the last several days I had asked the boys what they wanted to do to celebrate the solstice.  They had strong memories of lighting candles at the winter solstice and they suggest today that we light six candles.  I said "wow" that's interesting since it is the six month of the year and so we agreed to do it.  As we lit each candle we said what we remembered from each month of the year.  When Papa said January, Theo said, Cold.  We were off and the boys quickly came up with things for each month.  It isn't a traditional way to mark this day of the year, but it worked for our family especially since we enjoyed a summertime meal with corn on the cob.   We also know that it is now summer!

Last weekend  Grandpa Mac said it is certainly a good idea to live with the light and to pay attention to it.  We may not quite rise with the first rays and since the boys are only four and they definitely go to bed before the sun has set, however with our time spent outside the boys understand the passing of the year and even the hours of the day.  As we went to bed we noted that this morning we were dressed in winter clothes and by evening we were in summer clothes: such is summer in Seattle.