End of Summer With The Boys

As our very mature Mr. 13 reminded us, school begins in 3 weeks.  

The roads in Tucson are empty as families squeeze in the last trip of the summer.  

I needed some quality time with my favorite young Tucsonans before Middle School swallows them. 

It started with breakfast.

and continued through lunch. 

 Costco pizza got him through until dinner.

I'd forgotten how much growing boys can eat.  

It's not that we didn't work up an appetite. 

Ninety minutes at LA Fitness where I knew I shouldn't have stepped out onto the basketball court let alone tried to help him learn how to take a charge.  I'm icing my knee as I type this.  I hurt, but I'm smiling.  

This is a delightful 11 year old boy.  He's right on the cusp, clinging to boyhood as his brother thrashes his way through puberty, taking no prisoners along the way.  And so, while Mr. 13 was allowed to have the perfect day - alone, in his underwear, playing video games - Mr. 11 conquered the beast.

shopped for personal hygiene products 

while failing to find a decorative container for the plant we bought for his mother.  

There was more basketball

and a quick call to Big Cuter so he could remind me that Moneyball told Billy Beane's story and since Mr. 11 and I saw Billy Beane on ESPN at lunch and had been talking about baseball analytics and since Barnes and Noble is a favorite destination when either of those two and I are together it was a perfectly marvelous confluence of happiness as we three readers chatted and then smiled and then the two of us in Tucson went to Barnes and Noble and shopped. 

 Retrieving Mr. 13, we were on our way to tae kwon do when hunger struck again.  

I drove more quickly than he anticipated. He wanted to finish up and be on time for class. That was an ill advised combination at which we all laughed.  The ice cream ended up in his mouth and on his hand and covering his chin but not one drop on my brand-new-I-will-be-furious-if-you-spill-in-it car. 

It's okay now.

School can start.

I've had my dose, and I sent them off with a smile.