Summer Enrichment

Here in upstate NY the days are either extremely hot and muggy or cool and rainy. I sit here with a pile of undone chores and an exhaustion level ( Over 9000) in my bones after finishing a grueling 4 week, 10 hour a day summer enrichment program where I had the opportunity to teach and create memories with rising 5th graders.

The goals – stop the summer slide, feed bodies, and create fun opportunities in a safe environment.

Accomplishments – traveled the world, wrote poetry, created carnival games, put on a show, made new friends – oh yeah we read 9 books, did math problems, experimented with scientific hypotheses, learned foreign languages, invented, painted, sculpted, created – and we laughed. We laughed a lot.

We Sang. We danced. Every day!

Then there was the day we ran out of hot dogs for dinner. Yup. I was, to use a nice phrase – agitated.

But we had beans. Lots of beans. So growing up in an oftentimes impoverished household with depression era parents, I thought well there are buns and beans, let’s have bean sandwiches. We have bananas. We have cookies.

Thinly veiling my disappointment of not having what was on the menu, I danced into the room singing “We have beans on buns with bananas. Beans on buns with bananas.” Picture a hot, sweaty, miffed 6′ 2″ woman singing a silly song at the top of her lungs. I still don’t know how I mustered (haha) the wherewithal to think of that.

My sweet little girl M, so shy and loving comes up and says, ” What a wonderful feast will we have together – it’s like we are a family.”

Yup summer enrichment.