Summer is a BLAST!

Summer activities of Canaan: finger painting.

Mix some pretty colors, spread some newspaper on the grass (although I'm not sure why I was trying to keep the grass clean), put a gigantic paint shirt on Canaan (I'm sure Target makes kid-size paint gear), give her some paper and we're ready for a Norman Rockwell.

In this video, you can see that Canaan realizes in order to produce a quality finger painting, one must first evenly spread the paint all over the place. Including the sleeves of your paint shirt.

Soon, Canaan is side-tracked by the glorious squish of paint between your fingers.

And of course, no experimentation is complete without the ole' trusty "Taste Test." Crayola blue paint: non-toxic for sure. Taste tested and mother approved.

And for our final finger painting video, you get to experience Canaan's ultimate product.

The next summer activity for Canaan: getting a "big girl" car seat. While I think she's still too peanutty for this seat, apparently, she's ready. According to Consumer Reports. You can see in the following video that Canaan enjoys some leisurely reading while riding in the car. Until she gets frustrated that the free Chick-Fil-A book doesn't have any information to contact the publisher in regards to the text being upside down.

And thankfully her attention is quickly averted to the new car seat button. Crisis managed thanks to the bright red "release" button.

Summer activities continued: getting dressed up and throwing a tea party with the "girls."

Donning her purple tu-tu and tiara (thanks, Nana), Canaan is ready to get out the Bunko game and relax with a spot of tea.

Any proper hostess knows you first serve the cucumber sandwiches then the you offer the dinner mints.

"Is this the Earl Grey or the Passion Fruit tea from Starbucks?" Canaan is wondering while admiring the real pottery tea set her Grammy from Minnesota gave her.

Finally, it's time for one last Bunko call and then the clean up. Canaan is very efficient in cleaning up. Disclaimer: nothing was broken in the filming of this scene.

Not knowing what to do with the sugar cover, Canaan resorts to eating it.

Injuries come hand-in-hand with summer time. Bike crashes, bee stings, skinned knees, and falling off the bed. Actually, rolling out of the Bumpo seat which was strategically placed in the middle of the bed (for safety while I was vacuuming...of course.) Then, rolling off the bed, hitting her lip on the side table, and having it bleed only slightly. Then, an intense amount of swelling which went down after some miraculous application of the Boo-Boo Bunny. You can see the right side of the lip is slightly more "puffy" than the left. At first, I wondered if I was a bad mother, but then I realized I've just joined the ranks of millions of mothers whose kids have fallen off the bed and still live to see the day they graduate from college with a 3.78 GPA--no brain damage evident.

While the summer hasn't consisted of bike crashes or bee stings (yet), what summer would be complete without a little midnight trip to the ER? After two days of high fevers, a trip to the pediatrician who signs us off with a clean bill of health (except for the mysterious high-fever causing virus that's ravaging her little 18lb. body), we return home, put her to bed with a 100 degree fever, and an hour later, she wakes with a 105 fever!! Good LORD! So here we are, soaking her with tepid-water, praying for no brain damaging febrile seizures, calling the pediatrician's midnight hotline every 26 seconds, and finally, decide to take her to the ER. After double doses of Tylenol and Motrin, the fever goes back down, and by the end of the night, she's literally jumping on the bed and squealing at her roommate who's suffering from some mysterious pain in her abdomen. Next day: fever free and healthy as an ox.

Midnight trip to the ER: $1,259. Krystal's burger and fries after the most scary experience in your life: $6.89. Having a kid who is healthy and normal and enjoying every bit of her first summer: absolutely priceless!