It’s november, so I’m going to try posting again. Here are some things Molly, age 25 months, has said lately. This kid kills me.

“I’m so disappointed.”

(sotto voce, to her brother) “I don’t really need to take a nap.”

“Where’s my headache?!”

“Meez-Meez is going to EAT ME!” (Meez-Meez = Pingu, the claymation Nordic Penguin)

So much for JunePoBlahBlah! Ha. Oh, ha ha mightychuckle.

So. Let’s recap: Iain had arm surgery on Mackie’s birthday. Both events turned out fine. Iain now has a badass scar on the crook of his elbow and Mackie doesn’t appear to be scarred at all.

While Iain recovered, I spent the next week cleaning, packing and preparing for our weeklong family vacation to Vermont, where my brother and his beautiful fiance were getting married. We stuffed the minivan to the gills, buckled everyone in, and instructed Sue Ellen Magellan (our dour GPS system) to beam us up.

Two days of travel, 600 miles, countless restaurant meals with a nine-month-old baby who, bless her independent little chubby-cheeked heart, WILL NOT BE CONTAINED, and we arrived in the Green Mountain State, which was so beautiful that I immediately applied for citizenship. Vermont citizenship. Doesn’t exist, so we got a hotel instead.

Hotel air conditioning, bouncy beds, indoor pool, free coffee, no discernible bed bugs. THANK YOU, VISA. I AM NEVER LEAVING. Somebody even comes around to make your bed for you.

Let’s see. My sister-in-law, Zoe, and her family invited us over to their verdant artist compound for dinner one night; we visited a state park; we chatted with lots of family we never get to see; more swiming; the rehearsal (my boys were ring bearers/bell ringers), a rehearsal dinner; amazing Vermont food.

For two nights we stayed with my siblings in the home of a family friend, whose home was so inspiring that I could write a three-page essay on the way it made me feel and the changes I wanted to make to our lives. We saw my brother, Matt, marry Zoe in a glorious, sunshine-filled outdoor ceremony of love. Glad I was wearing waterproof mascara. Parenting three kids at a wedding reception was not easy, but facilitated muchly by the existence of an adjoining field in which to run and holler and the selfless help of people who were willing to hold a squirming Molly. There was dancing. Cake. Fireworks. More dancing. Some wine intervention, which made for a funny but not-suitable-for-print story. Then packing, brunch, and 600 miles home.

Immediately upon our return, we set about making a mess of our kitchen.The essay-worthy house we stayed in was the biggest impetus, although the bare, drywall-mudded ceiling we’d been living with for months (since the pipes above leaked this spring) was also, obviously, a factor. We tore out the laughably-dated brown vinyl floor, pulled up the plywood piece by jagged piece, and scraped off the undoubtedly lead-riddled and crumbling adhesive mysteriously coating the original hardwood underneath. We painted the floor and polyurethaned it, which kept us out of the kitchen for like three straight days, which was two and a half longer than expected. We painted the walls and hung a shelf and I scrubbed everything to a dull gleam and suddenly it was Monday again, a whole week of vacation up in dust.

Last week Iain went back to work at some summer institue thing, Owen began attending day camp, I went back to work, and it was like the long, arduous school year never ended. Cooking, cleaning, shuttling, wrangling, feeding, laundry, deadlines, start times, pickups, naps — It’s July today, and I’d really, really like to get more than five hours of sleep and spend a lazy day enjoying either A.) my delighful family or B.) a day without my delightful family.

I wrote this post while Molly was taking a 45-minute nap and the boys were getting their hair cut, and Molly just woke up and the boys just got home with their lollipops, and so none of my 87 camera-card pictures are going to grace this post, and I hope you understand.

Viva “summer”!