AFTER SCHOOL SURPRISE

Sage burst through the door this afternoon. 'Mama! I have a surprise for you!' Normally he was the last one to make it through the door as he sauntered on the walk home from school. Today was an exception.

He was overjoyed as he extended his little hand and showed me two delicate white flowers he had picked along the way. 'I picked two for you too!' exclaimed Cinnamon as she handed me two of the same type of flowers with a gleeful look on her face.

I thanked them both, put the four flowers into a small vase with water, and placed the vase on our coffee dining table. Afterwards we all sat at the table and ate vanilla bean and chocolate pudding for our afternoon snack. We would have had vanilla bean ice cream as a farewell to summer but vanilla bean happened to be the only flavour which was sold out at the local shop.

The flowers and the children's happy faces brought a smile to my soul as the day was another one of those days. The kind you cannot wait to come to an end. The sound of a day-long silence was broken as soon as the three children walked in. It felt as if life had been put on 'pause' when they left for school this morning.

After our snack, I helped the three with their homework and made up some math problems for Sage per his request. Later he sat with his sisters as they helped him come up with two word problems which he solved rather easily. As he handed me the paper to check and sign, he then requested I buy him a book filled with math questions.

The last day of summer has come to an end though nobody could tell from the 33 degrees Celsius which registered on the thermometer today. With autumn a few hours away, we can only hope for a reprieve from this heat along with the pleasure of rain.

With the approach of a new season comes a change in our dining choices as we start to make more soups and turn on our ovens for the months of baking ahead of us. The flowers will be gone soon but the enthusiastic voices of the children coming through the door after school will always be a welcoming sound.