NIGHT SWIM

It was one of the many items on her summer bucket list. The night swim we did tonight. Along with baking which she did earlier today. Both which my oldest was able to cross of the list today. She made a type of cheesecake cookies with bits of crushed Oreos which turned out quite tasty. The kids had grilled hot dogs by the pool as well.

Despite my having taken today off from work, in addition to the next two days, I awoke as early as I usually do. I spent the first two hours of the morning reading and was close to finishing the book until I decided to save the last 50 or so pages for later.

After a simple breakfast of pillow bread with Irish butter and mixed berries jam, I went to the house with Cinnamon to await the arrival of the lady from the rental management company. I straightened up the house as best as I could, still not having had the time to properly clean it as furniture remained in various rooms throughout the house.

She arrived and promptly took off her shoes. The tiled floors were clean and the fireplace room and kitchen were ready for photographs to be used on the new listing on Zillow. The lady proceeded to take a few photographs as the ones she had previously taken, when we moved in at the end of 2017, she had somehow lost.

When she looked arounds and realised that the house was no longer being lived in, she mentioned that if she could get people to come look at the house more regularly that she might be able to get the house rented out before the month’s end. There was no guarantee but the chance was there. Still, I had lost five months of having to pay for the house where I no longer lived as the owners refused to let me out of the lease, despite my circumstances.

Cinnamon and l left the house just as the lady was putting up the sign letting passersby know of the house being available for lease. We drove straight home and then I took my son on a short trip back to the bank and to Trader Joe’s for exactly three items, one of which was a box of shortbread cookies we would have for our teatime.

It was after we returned that I cleared a space in our small apartment kitchen for Saffron to bake her cookies. She wanted to this all on her own and I let her. Aside from assisting her with taking out the baking sheet from the hot oven. I was proud of her and realised she could do more baking when she returned from her summer with her father next month.

The remainder of the afternoon consisted of children being children trapped in a small space. All I kept hearing, and the neighbour upstairs as well, was ‘Get out of my room!’. The oldest and youngest were scheming something as they kept entering the girls’ room whilst Cinnamon was on her bed either listening to music or watching something on her laptop.

This continued for quite some time but there was not much I could do about it. Our space is small and there is no way for me to separate them other than sending them outside to play on their scooters. That lasted for about five minutes until I heard the front door open and saw that Saffron and Sage had returned. That was enough time for them, they figured, and continued as they had before.

I then gathered the hot dogs, buns, two tortillas with cheddar cheese and salsa, along with paper plates, tongs, and Saffron’s cookies for our night swim at the pool. That part of the day we all enjoyed greatly though Cinnamon was still sulking by the side of the pool for a reason that nobody knew why.

Despite the challenges of the day, I realised that things will change as time moves forward and the three grow up, making their way through childhood to the other side into adulthood. For now, we will navigate through these times as best we can.