I'll miss those early mornings

During these summer days with Heather commuting to work in Sioux Falls and Dylan here part of the time and gone part of the time to his dad's, the favorite part of each of my days while he has been here is from 6:30 to 8:30 a.m.

Dylan's "best buddy," by far, is his mom, so on those mornings when he has had trouble waking up before Heather's mandatory departure time of 6:45, he has been very disappointed that his mom has already left. So most days, Heather or I or both of us have managed to wake up Dylan so he can wave goodbye to his mom.

The typical routine is that I pick him up with Roscoe (his Minnesota Twins monkey) and a couple of other stuffed animals in tow and carry him (them!) outside as Heather gets into her car.

Dylan's and my standard game has been betting on which way Heather will go from our intersection---north to Cherry Street or east, a shorter way to get out to Highway 50 and on to I-29. She always goes east, and I know that and she knows that, so our "game" is that I bet she will go straight from our corner and Ryan bets she will turn east. Of course she always turns east, and he is delighted as he waves goodbye to his mom.

We stand out there until her car disappears far down Main Street to the east.

The rest of our routine is that from 6:45 to 7:00 Dylan watches "Arthur" on Iowa Public Television while I get my quick shower downstairs. The 7:00 half-hour is for "Curious George," during which time I fix Dylan some breakfast---fruit today? toast? cereal? Then during the 7:30 "Clifford" half-hour I get him dressed for the day. Heather always has his clothes set out, but sometimes Dylan determines he needs to wear his clothes for a particular sport, or he has one of his uniform-numbered shirts to wear. Finally after 8:00 he watches as much of "Super Why" as we have time for before heading off to the USD Children's Center in time to arrive there by 8:30.

Tuesday was the last of these very special mornings for this summer. Dylan is on to his dad's in Rapid City today for the last of this summer's 10-day visits out there, so by the time he is back for the week after next, Heather will be done with work in Sioux Falls and back in law school class here and she will have time to take Dylan to the children's center herself.

I'll miss those early mornings. They have been the highlight of the summer.