That's Back To School...back to business...back to alarm clocks, and homework, and snack-packing, gym shoe reminders, milk money, lunch accounts, practice schedules and other after-school where-a-bouts, clothes picked out and lined up before bed...oh, and bedtimes for heaven sakes! Bedtimes...before dark. Oh, the horror!
Admittedly though, despite the necessary evils that come with it...we're genuinely excited about the start of a new school year. I feel "accomplished" when I'm dressed and coffee'd up before 7:30. I can't say that was true...EVER...during the summer months. Early bird is just not in my nature. But its a good change. The kids were ready to bust out the front door this morning, and greet the neighbors who were gathering outside for first-day pictures. All of them excited to meet their new teachers, and sniff fresh notebooks...and sharpen pencils...and place that first doodle on their crisp folders.
A new beginning. An ending too. Funny how life keeps us moving along...ready or not. Now seven backpacks lined up on the window seat in the kitchen. Seven. SEVEN! That makes me pause and count again. Yep. Seven. That's just 4 left at home...for a couple more weeks until Frank and Rose line their backpacks up for the start of preschool. Oi.
What will Lucy and Anne and I do those quiet afternoons? (lots of folks ask me...) With all that quiet? What will we do? "Soak it up!" I say. Hopefully with lots of books, and snuggles, and games, and whatever it is we can do to enjoy these days ahead. We will talk and dance and laugh and sing...I hope EVERYDAY! Cause just yesterday...there were only two backpacks lined up...and now there are SEVEN, soon to be NINE. And I don't want to blink...I want to enter this "quiet" school year with my eyes wide open...hands far removed from the temptations of laundry and dishes...and SOAK UP those couple hours of quiet with my babies here at home. In all the hustle and bustle of our daily life, I've come to be certain of a couple things...God's love for me is everlasting...and time is not. Make the most of each. (oh...and no diaper is truly leak-proof, no matter what the label claims.) Of these things I can be sure.
Happy back-to-school year everyone! Soak it up, and God Bless!
