A Long, Long Day

"Mommy, I never want to go to school all day," Sis said after I told her for the umpteenth time that her friends weren't home from school yet.

We're finally figured out that our neighborhood kids go outside to play around 3:30, having arrived home half an hour earlier and done their homework. So, now, three days a week, we try to head down there to play, mainly on the very alluring trampoline. Today, we planned to take snacks, some of the frosted pumpkin cake we made yesterday.

But my kids are out of school by 11:30 and have no concept of time, except how long it always seems to take (except when it's fast, like when I set the timer to leave for school!). So for 4 hours, they kept asking when we could go down the street. Frustrated by 2 pm, Sis decided she didn't want to spend all day in school.

Who can blame her? It seemed long to me, too.

But we did get down there and jumped for more than an hour, sharing the snacks we'd brought. A great reward after a long wait.