You're looking forward to your kids having a consistent routine again, but at the exact same time you're feeling a little weepy about missing the laid-back freedom of summertime…
Same, same. It's the end of summer paradox of parenthood.
Here's what I know… my kids are growing up too fast. I will long for these days when it's a battle to cover them in sunscreen and we must hound them to get get to bed at a decent hour. "But, Mom, it's still light outside!"
I will miss finding stained-pink popsicle sticks around the house and I will wish we had one more day to live in our swimsuits. I'll wonder if I enjoyed the whirlwind or if June and July swept through like a pop-up Georgia thunderstorm with a surprise arrival, flash of excitement and just as quickly, gone. Flip flops, goggles and garden hoses will be put away, while I hope the memories of a summer well-spent will last a lifetime.
Now the school supplies are lined up on the dining room table. Freshly sharpened pencils, clean wide-ruled notebooks and crayons boxes with no broken pieces (yet.)
School uniforms are hung in the closet ready for first day of kindergarten and third grade photo ops on the front porch. Yes, I've got my tissues ready because my baby is going to kindergarten!
There's bright hope in the start of a new school year - what they will read, what they will learn and what they will discover about themselves. How will they be inspired by new teachers, who will become their new best friends… It's exciting to imagine what's to come…and I feel so blessed to see it all through their shining eyes.
But I will miss the lazy, pajamas 'til noon days, the green chlorine hair and the space summer gives them to be bored, thereby tapping into an innate creativity that tumbles out through cardboard art projects, pillow forts and endless coloring pages.
Nostalgic about the hot, happy days passing by too quickly? Yet pumped to get a break when teachers welcome your children back to class?
You're not alone.
With love, Jenn
