Getting started

Hard to believe it's already May 6 - only a month until summer begins! Cameron and Anne Houston have never done the swim team, so that's one new goal for the summer. Anne Houston is already asking how you win ribbons and all that works. I dread the day she finishes sixth in the breaststroke and out of the money.

But this summer is a great opportunity for them to learn and grow. It's hard to believe we only have five more years with Cameron in the house. Some days that seems - whew! - way too long to comprehend. But I know the day he leaves for college will be dripped with real shock and sadness - how did all those years fly by?

So this summer is a chance to spend some time together, to learn, to grow. Caroline will be in Maryland this summer more than she expected with work, and I have already sent her the Baltimore Orioles schedul. My only rule for the kids - you can't be a Yankees fan. Anything else, I can take. But having grown up with the Orioles, and having watched them flounder for 30 years, I can't extend the suffering by having the kids pull for the Yanks.

Red Sox? Sure. Yankees? Ugh.

So in May, I'm going to start looking at what the kids can learn this summer. Anne Houston will absorb anything and Cameron, once you get past the outer shell of indifference that cloaks all middle schoolers, will come around. I'd really like for them to end the summer with a solid understanding of how the United States was formed, how the government works, and why we act the way we do.

This blog will be an attempt to record that - and to allow others to weigh in with their thoughts on what they learn as the summer evolves.