First Day Blues

The clothes are laid out, the pencils are sharpened, the glue sticks and composition books are tucked in the new backpack, and the lunch has been packed, but are we ready for school-not by a long shot. I'm not ready for the still dark mornings when I have to rattle everyone from their slumbering warm beds. I'm not ready to say goodbye to long days spent swimming, playing house or more recently playing "band." Second grade seems big and scary, like first grade's frightening sequel. Second grade, when you're not really learning how to read anymore, but reading to learn. Second grade where Julia will turn eight...eight!

How can summer be over? There are so many friends we didn't get around to playing with or places we wanted to go, but never actually got the motivation to get there. And yet...we were busy with a busy kind of nothingness...going to the pool, visiting parks, hanging out with neighbors and family, trips to the lake. But there was that little packet of summer weekly "work" that in the last weeks of May seemed so doable, that now as August rushes to an end, we're scrambling to complete. Week one, roasted marshmallows; week two, tended to growing things in the garden; week three, counted by two's to 100...wait.... hurry, do that one. There never seemed to be a good time to just get down to the business of completing that work packet, what with Hogwarts school and quiddich matches, the Rockin' Twins band performances, and watching the hermit crab for signs of life.

But tomorrow it's back to the grindstone; the 7:45AM (inhumane) drop off, the homework packet, and the new afternoon bus ride that has already become a point of contention. The truth is, I just selfishly want another week. But I know in classic Jayne style, I'd just try to cram it full of everything I thought we should do over the summer, when in reality, they would just as soon run around in underwear all day playing Captain Underpants. After all, you can't really do that in school.

The Dog Days of Summer

What a summer its been. Since our Memorial Day camping trip we've been on one adventure after another. With trips to Lake Tippy in early June for Papa's birthday, and again for a week over the 4th of July, and our first ever all family (23 people!) beach vacation to Hilton Head, we are spent. The dog days of summer are upon us, and we're actually welcoming a few long boring days where we may or may not go swimming, we probably will eat a lot of popsicles, and we most certainly will lament the ever nearing first day of school.

It's been a difficult summer in some ways with tighter budgets from our wonderful family travels, as well as, new and unexpected medical expenses. Worries about money can overwhelm any couple, and cast a shadow on otherwise sunny days. When I look back on this summer, though, I know its not the counting of pennies and often unbalanced checkbooks that I'll remember , but the many "firsts" that I witnessed my children experiencing. I saw them become little fish in the pool this summer, both earning their ankle bands by swimming the length of the pool unassisted. They had their first real beach experience together with their cousins, building sandcastles and digging holes, and "fighting waves" as Ian described his adventures in the ocean. They collected shells, and starfish and sand dollars. They brought back two hermit crabs, Spidey and Hermey, who are still with us two weeks out! Julia went to Girl Scout camp and learned a whole slew of new songs we've had the "pleasure" of hearing for the past six weeks. I'll remember the lemonade stand they had on the day the new Harry Potter book came out, and how they were waving the wands they'd made at the library and wearing their Potter eyeglasses while they served customers. I won't look back and regret the hours I could have spent working or earning more money, I'll think about how lucky I was to spend those incredible hours and days creating memories with my children.

But most of all I'll remember that it was the summer I grew round like a ball carrying the newest member of our family inside me, eagerly awaiting his or her arrival this December when all the thoughts of summer have blown away with the leaves of fall.