post about summer camp<\/a>. What I didn\u2019t mention is that camp came on the heels of Penny being denied Extended School Year services by our local town. She was denied because we only live here in the summer. I scrambled to find a camp that would take her, and after a few places made it clear that they didn\u2019t want a child with Down syndrome, I found a camp that welcomed her with open arms. I won\u2019t go into the details of that story, but I will say that even though I think the various ways in which she was denied opportunities were wrong, in the end I\u2019m grateful that she has experienced a typical kid\u2019s summer. Camp. The beach. Lazy afternoons. Corn on the cob.<\/p>\nAs we approach the end of this summer, I\u2019m realizing that having children somehow has made summer more summery for the adults as well. My kids have given me reasons to go outside and ignore the computer. Opportunities to explain and remember my own childhood with walks on the beach and questions like \u201cWhat\u2019s driftwood?\u201d \u201cWhat are fireflies?\u201d \u201cHow does a ferris wheel spin?\u201d Laughter at popsicle juice dribbling, tears over scraped knees, and lots of great big hugs.<\/p>\n
We move to our new town on Monday, and school starts for Penny a week later. I\u2019m looking forward to resuming a routine, and she\u2019s eager to meet her new teachers and classmates. But I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll feel a little nostalgic for sprinklers on the lawn and scurrying over the rocks at the beach and eating lunch on the porch and cutting daisies in the front yard. So in honor of this summer and many summers to come, I\u2019ll end with a few more visual reminders of why I love it (why I love them) so:<\/p>\n
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A taste of our very summery summer, in photos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\n
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