The boys have been at the long-awaited Boy Scout Jamboree for the last week and a half. While E has been excited to be a temporary only child, I have been sobered by the thought that it won’t be long until the boys are off to whatever comes after high school, and this will be our next “new normal” all too soon.

A having his license, and acting as a chauffeur for a lot of their activities has already cut down the amount of time we’re spending together. Between the boys having almost full-time jobs this summer and camps and other activities, I feel like we’ve hardly seen each other, and next week starts band camp, so summer is essentially over. We are planning to take some smaller family trips throughout the fall as we continue to look at colleges, and we will do something together over the winter break, but I really feel like I’m getting a preview of what is to come, and I can’t say I love it.

Whether she sensed my mood, or she was just taking advantage of the situation, E made me promise that we would do lots of “girl” things while the boys were gone. First up on her list was the Barbie movie. I was surprised that she was eager to go, since Barbie has never been one of her go-to toys. On the other hand, I was a huge Barbie fan and still have all of them wrapped in tissue paper, in their original outfits, stored away in cardboard boxes.

E is now a little sad that she didn’t play more with her Barbies when she was little, and I have to say, she might be a little freaked out at exactly how much her mom remembered about the world of Barbie, but all in all, we had a great girls’ night out.

Next up was a shopping trip. This one was not a surprise. One of E’s favorite things to do is go shopping and she had some freshly earned babysitting money practically burning a hole in her pocket. I wasn’t quite ready to go school shopping yet, our tradition has always been to have a day out together right before school starts, but I wasn’t averse to a little retail therapy.

Although neither E nor I are into makeup to any great extent, E is very into skin care regimens, and has been trying to get me to join her. We browsed through Sephora together, with her explaining in great detail all of the things I should be doing to keep my skin looking youthful. There were enough mirrors in the place to let me know for sure that ship has already sailed, but I appreciated her efforts. At the rate she’s going, and if the advertising is to be believed, she should look like she’s 25 well into her 90s. We had such a good time, E was even generous enough to remind me to stock up on the body wash that she knows the boys like while we were at Target.

Finally, E’s big ask was that we head to the beach “just for the day” if we could. Honestly, it would be more work to find dog-sitters just for the day, so I found us a little dog friendly cottage and we went for three days instead. We ended up having a wonderful time, and accidentally stumbled onto one of the most dog friendly towns I’ve ever been in: Dewey Beach, Delaware. Even two slightly ill-mannered Airedales were tolerated and I’m pretty sure they are now big fans of the beach, like we are.

E surprised me by requesting that we get up and watch the sunrise together. Most of this summer, I haven’t seen her face much before 9 or 10 a.m., and it hasn’t always been pleasant. The dogs were only too thrilled to be heading out so early. We got down to the beach just in time to see a brilliant pink sunrise. The dogs got their morning exercise in and we were back to the cottage to enjoy a cup of coffee before 7 a.m.

E spent the rest of the time digging holes, boogie boarding, and reading on the beach. All of my favorite activities, minus the hole digging. She ended up having a surprise visit from a friend who was staying at a neighboring beach, which ended prematurely when a sudden thunderstorm rolled in. Even though we didn’t do much other than the beach, and eat ice cream, after three days, E said she was ready to go home. “I mean, I could stay if I had to, but I’m also ready to go home.”

I knew exactly what she meant. It had been a perfect little mommy and me time, although she would cringe if I used that term, but I was ready to go home, and most of all, ready for the boys to come home, even if it was just going to be for a weekend before they headed out to band camp. Come to think of it, between the beach trip with her, the college visits with A, and the kayak project with G, I’ve had some pretty special one-on-one time with each of them this summer. It certainly wasn’t our usual summer, but it wasn’t one where we sat around being sad and missing out on all the good times we used to have, either.

It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t intentional, and I can’t always say we were happy about it. E and I had plenty of tearful moments as we reminisced, because being at the beach was one of Steve’s favorite things to do. But, somehow, I know that this worked and it was in a new direction for us. I doubt the opportunities for us to sneak off for girl trips will happen all that frequently, but I’m already looking forward to the next one.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing columnist who appears weekly in the Times News.