The End of August Blues

I very much enjoy having my kids home with me over summer. I see parents online all over the nation counting down the days and even hours until their kids return to school and just cringe, because it make me realize that my kids are going back soon, too. I think I dread the beginning of school worse than my kids do.

Usually by the time school starts again, I have reached the point that I'm ready for it to happen as well. While summer is a wonderful time of family and togetherness, by the time August is coming to a close I'm ready for the routine of school again, and fall to come, and life to move on to the next chapter. It's a slow process, this gradual acceptance that school is starting. Kind of like watching snow melt in the spring. Slowly, slowly I grow accustomed to the fact that my kids will be another grade older and will not be home with me all day, and then one day I wake up and I'm just ready for it to happen.

This year, however, that didn't happen. I had to talk myself into my kids leaving me much like I'd talk myself into a root canal. I can do this! I can! Come on. We'll do it together, okay? (I said to myself.) It's not going to be pleasant, and I'm definitely not willing for it to happen, but I've got no choice in this matter so I'll pretend that I do and just do it.

I have one day with my kiddos left, and Becky gets her wisdom teeth out tomorrow. So that pretty much means that the day will not be a fun one as far as awesome family time goes. I kind of stressed about this all weekend, thinking that I had just 4 days, then 3, and 2, and now just on day left with my dear kiddos before they're gone more hours of the day than they're home. Our summer wasn't as awesome as I'd envisioned it would be when school was let out this spring. We spent enough time and money in and out of the emergency room that we could have had a weekend mini-vacation somewhere. There was a lot of unfun this summer, and little time for family fun. In fact, we barely even had family time around our fire pit this summer. That is definitely a tragedy. (I do blame the weather for that a lot, though. And my lack of taking matters into my own hands. We never had dry firewood from all the rain we had.)

And then my dear husband reminded me today that the kids don't go back to school this Tuesday, they go next week.

Hallelujah, I've got another full week at home with my chicklets before they are whisked away to school for another year of education! I have no plans for the week, and Becky gets her wisdom teeth out tomorrow, but my kids will still be here. And maybe sometime in the coming week I'll wake up and realize that the snow is gone and I'm just ready for the next chapter of our lives to begin.


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