Back to School Blues...

I talk a big game about hating my kids and pawning them off on a babysitter 90% of their lives, however, that's not really true (at least not anymore).   Sleeping (or, in our case, NOT sleeping), eating, and pooping dictated our life for SIX YEARS!  In May, I started mentally dreading summer because it's always a shit show.

But our summer was amazing.  The baby is 3 but we still call him "the baby" and he's just independent as his older sisters.  My middle child has found her groove in the family by being the helper who was in charge of packing the essentials for our summer adventures every day.  My oldest can finally swim and sleeps like a teenager.   We played and we napped and we traveled and we SLEPT IN.  We savored the fact that we didn't have to pack lunches and backpacks.  We didn't have to brush our hair or even get out of our pajamas if we didn't want to.  Life is so damn good.

And, just like that, summer is over.  The kids went back to school this week and I know I should be jumping for joy.  I wished away so much time over the past six years waiting for this very day.   When it finally arrived, I didn't feel like jumping for joy.   All I wanted to do was rewind.  I wanted to start summer over.  I wanted to re do all the laughs, the cuddles, and the lazy warm summer days with these three little munchkins.

I put on a brave happy face for my 1st grader when I dropped her off in the wrong car line and she had to bob and weave in between moving cars to reach the curb of her new building at school.  But not so deep down, I was sad.  I was a little sad that I hadn't read the 4 page booklet with car line instructions but I was mostly sad because I wasn't sure that little girl realized how much it meant to me to share the summer with her.  I watched her run to the curb, turn around to give me a "thumbs up" and then race into new building, her new classroom and her exciting new year.  She was so excited and happy to start a new chapter in her life because she enjoyed and cherished every minute of the wonderful summer we shared.  She doesn't have regrets because she's always living in that very moment.  And it made me realize that we truly have so much to learn from our kids. May we all learn to embrace new experiences, live in the moment, and be fearless about what life might throw at us.

Cheers to a wonderful school year!!