This summer Everett is growing much more independent. He has always been very social, and now he has started to take a much bigger interest in developing his own friendships, especially with the kids in the neighborhood. When he was younger it seemed that the kids became friends because of mutual interest by the parents, especially the Moms. This has now reversed: many of the children in the neighborhood are friends, and as a result the adults talk to each other much more often than we would otherwise.

We were home for July 4th this year. Under normal circumstances on Independence Day our schedule would be:
-Chris goes for a morning ride with the Spokesmen. At the end of the ride we roll down the parade route on North Ave and wave to admiring fans of middle-aged men on expensive road bikes.
-Chris returns home and picks up the family. We return to the parade route and watch for a couple hours.
-In the afternoon we go to Hart Park for festivities
-In the evening we watch the fireworks, either from the field behind our house or from Hart Park.

However, these are not normal times. Melissa is in the home stretch with her pregnancy. She is also very uncomfortable and has pretty limited mobility. Bike riding is out for her (though Chris tried repeatedly to get her to ride in the Bakfiets, or on the Pugsley), as is walking along the parade route in the hot sun. So we followed an alternate plan:
-Chris rode with the Spokesmen as usual, including the parade route.
-He rode home, picked up Everett and went back to the parade route while Melissa stayed home. Chris and Everett found some Y-tribe friends, and soon afterward we found Sam, George and Emma.


-We stayed home for the rest of the day. Everett took a nap in the afternoon so that he could stay up late. We cooked a steak dinner on the grill, and afterward walked over to the Marx’s house (two doors up the hill) for conversation and sparklers.

-Chris and Everett joined several neighbors by walking to Hart Park to watch the fireworks.

On Saturday Chris & Everett went for a bike ride to feed the ducks (and rid our kitchen of the many bags of old bread we save for duck food).

Everett played hard the rest of the day at home and with friends in the neighborhood. This activity level is resulting in high sleep inertia at the end of the day. That evening Everett was too tired to eat but too hungry to sleep. He said he was starving and had a stomach ache. Chris served him dinner and he promptly put his head on the dining room table and fell asleep so soundly that he fell out of his chair. Fortunately Chris was walking through the room at the moment and caught him. We gave him a bath, which woke him up enough to eat, and by the time we got him to bed he was feeling back to normal. Melissa and Chris agree that this degree of fun and exhaustion is how summers should be at his age.