Summers were very long in Michigan. And hot. You live in California and you think you know about heat? OK, so you may be inland and log hundred degree days as often as we coastal folks have fog, but you have dry heat. You have air conditioning. Close your eyes and take yourselves back to the “good” old days of my youth…
The mercury rises to 90, but the humidity is at 99. You walk something like a monkey, your arms held out from your sides, your legs bowed so that your thighs can’t touch. It’s hot. It’s really, really hot. But there’s no beautiful clear blue western sky. It’s hazy. Hot, hazy, and there’s no view. There’s no wind. You’re wearing as little clothing as it’s legal to wear in these parts, but still you’re hot. Halter tops can’t change that.
One of your friends got air-conditioning recently, but that was exotic. To get air-conditioning, the rest of us ride our bikes to the supermarket or drugstore. We cruise the aisles, pretending we’re there to buy something.
Problem is, we have to ride our bikes back home. And it’s hot. So what do we do?
Lemonade stand!
Today my kids made six dollars while I worked. First I had to meet with a client (and a fellow mom) whom I’d completely forgotten about last week. I was feeling bad about that, but what can I do? When I’m with my kids, I can’t seem to remember anything. So I told her, yes, come on by and I’ll stick my kids in front of a video. But instead, the six-year-old started a lemonade stand, and as soon as the ten-year-old saw the cold, hard cash, he was in as well. (He wants an iPod!)
They sold lemonade all through that meeting. My client left (she was paying me and my kids – she bought a cup for herself). They ran out of lemonade and a neighbor came by with a bunch more lemons to juice. So they made more and were back outside. I called another client and had a phone meeting while I watched and listened out the upstairs front window.
It may not have been specifically educational, but today was the sort of summer I had as a kid. My mother likes to remark how different parenting is these days, and one of the major differences she sees is that we play with our kids. “We didn’t play with kids,” she said. “We just shooed you outside and figured you’d entertain yourselves.”
So today I was channeling my mother. And it was good. My kids scammed all the neighbors (though I guess 25 cents for a lemonade isn’t so bad), had fun, and I got lots of work done. This is what summer was like when I was a kid.
Though much less hot. In coastal California, instead of selling lemonade in the summertime, perhaps they should sell hot cider. We’ve got a summer chill going on here that warrants sitting inside shivering under a blanket. But I respect my kids’ entrepreneurial spirit, and I definitely appreciated their leaving me along to tie up loose ends before we embark on our next road trip.
And it was, actually, educational. They made money, and it wasn’t even from our lemons.
