At the beginning of summer, I bought my six-year-old daughter a jump rope.  I didn’t think too much of it at the time, as I was mainly trying to find low-key activities that we could enjoy outside, but that didn’t cost a lot of money, and maybe she could do by herself. At the last second, I added a second longer jump rope to my cart, figuring hey, why not? Maybe I could teach her to jump rope with a friend, me swinging it for her with the other end tied to a post or something, the way I learned. I bought a few other things for the summer — a new pool for the kids, sidewalk chalk, bubbles. The usual.

I didn’t expect the jump rope to be the star of our summer, and yet as I type this, my daughter and I just finished twirling and jumping together and working up to nearly twenty jumps in a row. Twenty! From a six-year-old! 

Of course, she didn’t start out jumping that many in a row. It took time. At first, I’d shout Jump! Jump! Jump! at each interval just when she needed to. Next, I taught her to listen for the slap of the rope against the ground in front of her so she could intuit the right time to fly. There we’d be, outside in the gloaming twilight, sky purple and pink, cicadas chirping, and I’d be either calling Jump! Jump! Jump! or Listen for the slap! There you go! Go!

For a while, she was stuck at getting four or five jumps in a row, and then she’d get tangled, the way you do. “I’m never going to get it!” she moaned on more than one occasion. But we kept going. I’d do my work during the day, she’d do hers (a combination of a K-1 summer brainquest book and various handwriting exercises and I Can Read! books) and then at the end of our days, there we’d be, meeting in the driveway, her often barefoot, me sweaty in the sticky, humid Virginia air, tired, but ready. Determined, even. Because we were there on a mission. She was going to jump rope, and by the end of the summer, she’d be a pro.

I could have, I suppose, doubled down on the I Can Read books. Could have suggested we do one more print exercise after dinner, just to get in some more practice. But the jump rope’s call was stronger, and as time wore on, it felt somehow just as important. Maybe even more important. I thought about the way we push kids to spend all their time doing enrichment activities, the way we encourage them to hustle and learn learn learn, because — well, that stuff IS important. But the soft summer nights filled with bare feet jumping and the jump rope whirling around? There’s something magical about it, especially as you watch your child begin to get better. And better. And better.

There is something magic in watching your kids do something just for the fun of it, whether it’s a skill or a hobby or just something goofy. And when I think back to the summer of 2020, I don’t want to remember the Brainquest book or the handwriting practice or the I Can Read! Books. I want to remember the sound of bare feet and a jump rope and counting and laughter as the cicadas sang. That’s what I want to remember more than anything else. That, and the look of pride on my daughter’s face as she jumped higher, longer, reaching ten, then fifteen, then twenty. Let that be the summer we remember, always.