Feels like summer’s last stand

THE little Bolshevik and I are taking a Labor Day nap at the sunny beach, him drooling a little on the soft skin of my inner arm. Toddler nectar. SPF-4.

“Wouldya quit drooling?” I ask him.

“OK, Daddy,” the toddler says.

I like this toddler. He behaves as if every day were Friday, as if all seasons were summer. When I took him to the UCLA game the other day, he climbed into Section 23 and clapped for the opposing team’s marching band. He waved to a UCLA cheerleader. It wasn’t even kickoff yet, and he began to yodel “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

“Go Bruins!” he screamed when he was done.

“Where are your parents?” I asked.

“Ya-hoo!” he said as the teams took the field.

It was his first game at the collegiate level. He turned to high-five the college kids sitting behind us and shook hands with various fans jostling past his hard metal seat. There was Play-Doh in his cuticles and grape juice on his shirt. That wouldn’t stop him. Someone had to host this great event.

“Is it over?” he asked.

“It hasn’t started yet.”

“Oh no,” he says.

He’s not a total dope, this toddler. He has watched a lot of football on TV, and has witnessed several games at the high school level. But this was something special: opening day at the Rose Bowl. Temp about a million degrees. Hot enough to melt bone.

“Is it over?” he asked when the first quarter ended.

Is it over? Well, seems summer is pretty much over, sure. Flew by too. The little girl spent most of it in front of the mirror, muttering things like “I hate my lips,” then stomping off, presumably in search of better lips. Her older brother spent his summer working, working, working and dating some Paris Hilton clone (L.A. produces them like sparrows).

Her older sister? Well, she made a big deal about finally moving out, before apparently moving back in again, then moving out, then moving back in, then ...

Who can tell really? All I know is that she couldn’t wait to leave, and now her new apartment sits vacant about 90% of the time, home to 50 pairs of shoes and a couple of Coldplay posters.

“We could maybe use it for storage,” her mother says.

“Or move there ourselves,” I say.

How’d that be for revenge? We’d move into our older daughter’s apartment and leave her home to raise her three younger siblings. They’re not much trouble, really. A little too quick with their opinions. Little Bolsheviks, all of them, unproductive and inert.

Yet they eat often, about nine meals a day, and produce about as much dirty, sweaty laundry as the New York Yankees. They have really bad taste in TV, clothes, music and friends. You constantly have to flush behind them, or chauffeur them to this event or that, while battling the sneaky suspicion that they have way too many activities.

Other than that, the little Bolsheviks are a breeze. The key is under the mat. Good luck.

While we chew on that tempting thought, we say goodbye to summer with a beach trip to Orange County, where we plop a bunch of redheads in the hot sand and hope for the best. Taking redheads to the beach is like placing cotton candy on a hot car hood. Sizzle. Ouch. Medic!

“I can’t believe it’s over,” their mother says.

“What?” I say.

“Summer, duh,” she says, then proceeds to slather the kids with sunscreen till they resemble cole slaw, at which point the toddler rolls in the sand, breading himself like cod. We’ll be shaking the sand out of his hair till Christmas, I promise you.

Me, I nap a little, then sit in my beach chair and sneak peeks at a woman whose bathing suit is the same color as her copper skin. She is naked without really being naked. Which is almost unfair.

“We’re coming here next week,” says our friend Bill, who evidently spotted the “naked” woman as well.

Us, I’m not sure. I think we’re ready to move on to autumn. To football and preschool. Bratwurst and World Series runs (Go Dodgers!).

We’ll miss summer. But we always look forward to a good fall, when every day feels like Friday. And every season is worth cheering.

Autumn at last. Ya-hoo!

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com or myspace.com/chriserskine.