Oh, What do you DO in the Summertime?

Over the weekend,
we hiked the Crags...
which is an awesome trail
on the West side of Pikes Peak.
We got alot of sun on the hike,
but noone burned because we
slathered on the sunblock.
I have pics to post of it,
but not right now
cuz I'm too lazy to go find the camera
in one of the backpacks...

but that's another story.

On Monday,
I headed up to Park Meadows Mall
in south Denver
to meet up with a blog friend,
Marilyn who was up here
from her hometown in Arizona.
While I was at the mall,
I dropped my yahoos off
at a friends' house up there
so they could go swimming and
hang out.
They were told to put on
sunblock--
which they swear they did
BEFORE
swimming for four hours.
Four
hours 
of swimming.
Yeah,
when I picked them up,
their faces were already sunburned
and bright red as strawberries
and they were complaining.

It's now two days later
and
they're still in pain.
We put them in cool showers
and
cool tubs of water
to help heal their skin.
We've aloe-vera'd
lidacained
solarcained
and
ice-cubed.

Their skin is red hot like chili peppers
and these yahoos are feelin' miserable,
and miserable yahoos
are
no
stinkin'
fun--

this morning I went to get my haircut
and my cell phone rings--
it's the Caboose on the other end
and she is
Up.
Set.
"Mommy, Joseph's crying. He hit my sunburn,
so I hit his sunburn and now he's crying."

I can hear his pain thru the phone.

"Did you love on him?"

"I said 'sorry' but he won't accept it! He won't accept it, Mom!
Will you talk to him?" she asked.

"Sure, put him on."
A second or two passes and she's back on the phone:
"He won't talk."

I can hear his sobs of pain and a twinge grabs my stomach
in sympathy.
"Okay, I'm almost done. Give him a drink of water and love on him
till I get home, k?"

She replies sadly, "Okay."

I close my phone and think about what just happened:

I'm gone for,
let's see...thirty minutes and
my youngest two yahoos are slapping
each other's sunburned bodies,
like they were raised
by the Three Stooges!

"What am I doing wrong?", I wonder.
And once I'm past the shock,
I smile at it all...
My kids are home slappin' each others' sunburn!
Who does that???

By the time I get back home,
I walk in and the two of them
are sitting silently on the sofa
watching
i-Carly
as though absolutely
nothing happened.

I just love summer.