In the morning I wound up doing Mommy Day #5. Every summer I do one-on-one days with my older kids. The youngest (whoever that happens to be) tends to get a fair amount of attention just by virtue of being little and needing a lot of care. So I don’t necessarily start doing official Mommy Days until age 4 or so. But I do remember in the summer of 2017 taking my then-2-year-old to the Shedd Aquarium solo, and him enjoying it. And sure enough, I did a Mommy Day of sorts with my current 2-year-old too.

We went to Sesame Place, which is only about 45 minutes from my house. We went on various rides — he wanted to try the roller coaster, but you had to be 3 years old or 44 inches! He did like the swings and the teacups (ugh). I think eventually he found it all overwhelming and hot, but he was revived by an Elmo cupcake and an Abby bubble-maker. We left around 1 p.m. and he slept in the car.

I did a little bit of work before leaving at 5 p.m. with my husband and older two boys for Longwood Gardens to see the Mary Chapin Carpenter concert there. I’d gotten tickets for this back in March, and so it had been an obvious entry for my Summer Fun List.

I was slightly concerned it wouldn’t happen. We’ve had two weeks of basically no rain, and then it started storming right around 6:30 p.m. for a 7 p.m. outdoor concert. They delayed it for an hour — during which we got dinner, and walked around the lovely conservatory seeing orchids and such — but then the weather completely cleared up and the night was absolutely perfect.

Carpenter put on a wonderful show. I appreciated that she mostly played her greatest hits. I get that as an artist doing shows every night you might want to play new stuff, or your favorite pieces that you feel didn’t get enough attention…but your fans aren’t there every night and they want to hear their favorites. So that is what she gave us. Her one perhaps-not-as-well-known piece she played was the exact one I wanted her to play! She wrote “Halley Came to Jackson” about a scene from Eudora Welty’s childhood, when her father held her up to the window to see Halley’s comet in 1910, with a supposed wish that she might see it again. And in 1986, from that same front porch, she did. This song gets me every time, the scene of a parent wishing a long and full life for a child, and that blessing coming true.

I also really appreciated her band’s abilities. The piano player was just having the time of his life on the piano solo during “I Feel Lucky” (which isn’t my favorite song, but the piano interlude does sell it for me). And the fiddler on Halley Came to Jackson! Very evocative of a southern summer porch.

Anyway, quite the day. I am rounding toward the end of my Summer Fun List so I’ll post an update on that soon! In the meantime, happy end of August. On Friday the morning low will be in the 50s. The weather is changing. It was good to be outside listening to music, trying to hold onto the present even while watching summer fade into fall.

Photo: From the Longwood conservatory. Kind of fitting for the feeling of seasons blending into each other…

I was booked to give a speech in Tampa at 8:50 a.m. on Thursday. I planned to fly from PHL to Tampa on the last direct flight on Wednesday (4:15 p.m.). The plane boarded on time, but then there was some issue with an armrest that had to be repaired. Then maintenance took a little longer and we were slightly delayed. Then we needed to be rerouted around storms that had moved in (possibly during our delay? It was unclear.). The route that air traffic control gave us required more fuel than we had. The pilots and air traffic control went back and forth on this several times. No route was agreed upon, so after almost two hours on the tarmac, we went back to the gate to get more fuel. Alas, at that point, one of our pilots timed out. We all had to deplane as theoretically the airline was finding a reserve, but that did not happen. About 30 minutes later they canceled the flight.

So, what to do? I wound up rebooking on the 7 a.m. flight that got in to Tampa at 9:30. This was, of course, after the original speech was to start, but the hosts agreed to move things around. My speech would now start at 10:15. Fortunately, the venue was only a short distance from the Tampa airport. I’d talk, get back in the car, and with any luck make my original flight home (12:05 p.m.!)

It did seem like much could go wrong in this scenario, what with being on the ground in Tampa for only 2.5 hours, but after the Wednesday disaster, Thursday was fairly charmed. I left my house in Pennsylvania at 5:30 a.m., and was back home in my house by 4 p.m. In between, I went all the way to Florida and back! And gave a speech. We finished at 11:05 a.m., I got in the car and made my flight with plenty of time to spare. Hurrah.

I’m doing Mommy Day #3 this weekend, which will be a bit more elaborate, so more to come on that…

My Medium column this week looked at How to Stop Wishing Time Away.

The Before Breakfast podcast covered several topics, including “Don’t be minute wise and hour foolish,” that “Your friends are my friends,” and why you should “Track time while off the clock.”

Photo: I have no actual photos of Tampa, so this early morning picture of the parking lot at PHL will have to do. I always snap a photo of my car’s location and what deck of the parking garage I’m on. I think I’ll remember but…I don’t. 

But, as someone once said, people are a good use of time. The kids have actually had more limited ambitions than the full day-at-the-amusement-park extravaganzas we’ve done in previous years. So I figured I could at least do a Mommy Few Hours.

My 12-year-old and I seized some time yesterday. I had to pick him up early at camp because of my call + virtual meeting schedule but when I finished at 3:30, he and I took off to go find the Cousins Maine Lobster truck. He got a Connecticut roll and I got a Maine roll (and a blueberry soda!). Then we went to Dave & Busters and played games. I managed to make the leaderboard on the piano keys game (several times, in fact…) and I got a 500 ticket jackpot on one of the spin-the-wheel games.

Of course, that is just about enough for a single piece of candy in the prize area, but my kids are absolutely obsessed with trading in their tickets. I gave my son my tickets and he selected a handful of treasures. All in all, he was happy with the experience.

Next, I’ll be doing a spa day (well, few hours) with the 10-year-old. Then I just have to figure out how to fit in two more requests. The 7-year-old isn’t sure what he wants to do, but I have a sneaky suspicion it might involve something similar to Dave & Busters…