This month we officially have one child starting their first year of middle school, and one child starting their last — and one mom having a much tougher time handling it then she was prepared for.  Not that long ago the idea of driver’s licenses and part-time jobs and college visits seemed a lifetime away, but now the knowledge that they are within our grasp is honestly pretty terrifying.   And I know that our busy schedules sending us in different directions every night of the week is making it even harder.  It makes me homesick for the time when they were little and by my side at every moment instead of today where I have to hoard the rare moments when we’re all together.

This year we spent our 3rd labor day in one of my favorite places in the world – Ocean City, NJ.  My oldest son asked me on the way why we only started coming a few years ago — and it hit me that I was his exact age when I spent my first summer at the beach.  Having grown up in the mid-west, we moved to the East Coast when I was in 6th grade so spending summers down at the Shore was something I didn’t grow up with but was very important to my adolescent years and I wanted to share those specific memories of my childhood with my boys when they got to that age.  As much as we try to venture out to new places, one thing the four of us share is a love of the familiar when we need to recharge.  These few days we spend each year making memories doing the simplest of things together (playing mini-golf, riding bikes on the boardwalk, boogie boarding, riding carnival rides) before we jump fully into the school year are hopefully memories that will stay with them they same way they’ve stayed with me all these years.

And because to me there’s no better way to remember a place then through the food you connect with it – I’d be remiss if I didn’t pass along the places we have to visit each year for anyone reading that may one day find themselves at the Shore.  I wait all year to taste some of these treats and they taste just as good as the first time I had them way back in middle school

Ike’s Famous Crab Cakes, Johnson’s Popcorn, Manco and Manco Pizza, Shriver’s Salt Water Taffy, Del’s Grill, Kohr Bros Custard

This may have by the best month of reading I’ve ever had – each of these titles will stay with me in different ways for a long time:

• We Were Liars By E. Lockhart
• Betty By Tiffany McDaniel
• Circe By Madeline Miller
• Human Rites By Juno Dawson
• Bright Young Women By Jessica Knoll