Long live those long, unhurried days of summer, when the sun sank behind the mountains as we finished up a late dinner and let Mayla search for fireflies in the backyard before a late bedtime. Long live its sounds and smells, the hiss of the grill and the new plastic of inflatable pools. Long live the heat and the storms and the cool gray nights. Long live summer.
Summer, for teachers, is special, perhaps even sacred, but this one carried more meaning for me: It was the first real one I spent with Mayla, our vibrant, curious, exhausting 17-month-old daughter. Last year, both because of her age and her dependence on Carly for feeding, father-daughter time was relatively and understandably limited. And this summer, with Carly, my wife, working part-time, we tried to make up for it.
So, with the summer officially ending in less than a week (teachers in our county go back to work on Monday), here is what I’ll remember from those two precious months with my daughter.
I’ll remember taking her on hikes, strapping her to my chest as she pointed to the trees and leaves all around us and keeping her content with a ready supply of her favorite snacks. I’ll remember the trips to the library, where every book was her favorite book and she waddled around the kids section as if it were her home. I’ll remember our family trip to the science museum, where she played with rocks and trains and colored pictures of weasels as her father read a Carl Sagan quote about the vastness of the universe and the smallness of Earth on the wall. I’ll remember discovering that her name means “one who loves water” and thinking how fitting that was as we watched her play in endless pools and creeks and puddles and hoses. I’ll remember her learning how to say water, her demands for “wawa”—either to drink or play in—echoing around our house daily.
I’ll remember pushing her in the stroller for runs around our neighborhood, in the rain, on my favorite trail in the woods. I’ll remember her falling asleep once we reached the top of the climb, the rhythm of running and sounds of summer making her eyes heavy. I’ll remember watching her walk around a fairy garden with my mom, swing on a swing set built by my dad, listen to my sister read about an insatiable caterpillar. I’ll remember her demanding to be read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and Red Hat, Green Hat and Will You Be My Sunshine? at least 50 times each. I’ll remember the joy and wonder on her face when she discovered that like the teacher in Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Carly also wore glasses, her little neurons forever firing and connecting as she pointed back and forth from the illustration to Carly’s face. I’ll remember when she learned how to ask us to play “Wheels on the Bus” by attempting to rotate her fists over each other but looking more like she was speed punching a tiny punching bag in front of her face. I’ll remember her insistence on helping us with chores around the house: dumping laundry into the machine, feeding the dogs (and picking up every dropped piece of food one-by-one), handing us clean spoons to put away from the dishwasher.
I’ll remember teaching her how to kick a soccer ball and give a fist bump, that “luna” is Spanish for moon, and that the best flavor of ice cream in the summer is strawberry. I’ll remember her getting a zucchini that was almost as tall as her from our friend’s garden, and watching her eat a tomato, like an apple, straight off the vine from her aunt’s. I’ll remember the smells of grilled salmon, crisp watermelon, fresh basil sitting on the kitchen windowsill—and our long, slow lunches on Sundays.
I’ll remember traveling down to south Florida to see her aunt, and up to rural New York to see her extended family. I’ll remember changing her diaper in the plane bathroom on the flight there, bouncing with the turbulence as she smiled up at me from the too-small changing pad. I’ll remember picking blueberries with her in the garden of the great-grandma she never met but loved her deeply, laughing as she ate four of every five she picked, and watching her swing from the same tree that Carly used to in the summers. Finally, I’ll remember watching the river with her later that day, sitting on a bench outside of our hotel as a soft breeze made the flowers around us dance as she looked out at the water and rested her hand on my leg, reminding me that, sometimes, the best thing you can do as a dad is simply be there.
Mostly, I’ll remember this as the summer I got to know my daughter better: her moods, her intricacies, her thoughts and desires. I knew her, of course, and fatherhood doesn’t stop once the school year begins, but this summer was something beyond the normal break from work, something that felt important.
I will miss it.
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