Vacation is over, the Fourth of July is over, grandma went home, and we’re back to “normal.” Which means Annika is telling me every ten minutes of so, “I wanna do something!” I looked up 99 free things to do in the Twin Cities, and she turned down everything. I finally told her I wasn’t her entertainment provider and that she would need to go find something to do.

She cleaned up part of her room, made two collages, read a chapter of her book, made some miniature sculptures out of some clay she bought at the City Museum, played with a neighbor for a while, and listened to a bunch of music. I told her I’d take her to the park, but she was frustrated and just went into her room because “I don’t know what I want to do!”

So I went outside and got my tile out. I have a bunch of tile that I mostly bought a few years ago, but set aside to work with glass, then because I didn’t do much art for a while. I started planning a mosaic when Annika came out and asked if she could make one too. What was a frustrating day of trying to placate a “bored” girl turned into a beautiful art night together – just needed some mosquito repellent. She worked really hard to make a symmetrical balanced pattern.

Then, right as the sun was setting, she asked, “can we still go to the park?”

Summer can be tough.