Teen Queens and Strong Thumbs

So there it goes. Summer 2010. On warmer afternoons I can almost imagine it is still summer, but in the mornings the grass is heavy with dew, and the early evening sun now slides behind the house rather than sailing above it, casting longer shadows over the garden. Both kids are back to school now (after a false start for The Girl, who has been suffering with a Mystery Ailment for a few weeks now). A mixed bag of a summer, but I'm sorry to see it go.

The Girl's transition to Teen Queen continues, although not at a steady pace. As she spent more of the summer with us than with her friends, she gradually reverted to something more like the girl she was a year ago. Not that there is anything wrong with the girl she has become, it's just that there is a slightly harder edge to her when she is with her secondary school friends. By the time we went on holiday, she had been hanging out with me and the Boy for a few weeks, so was ready to enjoy herself Old School - playing with inflatables in the pool, diving to find fish in the sea, building sand castles (and digging wells - it's clearly genetic).

The Boy has a very peculiar inner alarm clock. On school days, he has to be dug out of bed with a crow bar at seven a.m. On the weekend and holidays, he wakes bright-eyed and bushy tailed at six-thirty. He says it's all to do with having something worth waking up for. Given that he is allowed to play his DS before breakfast during the holidays, I can see where his priorities lie. It has been nice for Hubby, though, that the Boy has been waking early all summer - it is lonely for him, setting off for work while we all slumber on. Now the Boy is back at school, I will miss his Random Daily Statement, the best of which was: 'I've just noticed, I have very strong thumbs.'

And now we are back in the thick of it and it seems like I am always doing six things at once, none of them very effectively. But it's not quite time to put away the flip flops yet - at least not until the clocks go back.