That was the feeling I had this morning as I put my sons on the school bus for third and fourth grades.
That was the feeling as I transcribed their schedules into my online calendar that synchs with my smart phone that will more or less dictate the next nine months of my life.
That was the feeling as I returned to my empty house with the mindset of tackling every project that I have let slide for the past two months.
I’ve never been one to lament the passage of time. As my kids weighed down with school supplies made their way to the bus stop, it wasn’t necessarily sadness that I was feeling. It was something a little closer to being at the starting line of a race. A little bit nervous, a little bit excited and a whole lot of, “It’s time to buckle down and DO this.”
Because being a student and the parent of a student requires a whole lot of discipline and organization.
It requires the abrupt end of 5:00pm tonic drinks, meals of goldfish crackers straight out of the bag, and bedtimes that creep later and later into the evening.
It requires structure, planning, and foresight–all things that under the bright sun of summer seem faded and less important.
It requires a certain time-to-make-the-donuts, industrial-ness that we want to instill in our children but that I find myself bucking against more often than not.
In the bright reflection of the school bus window, I’m feeling the end of certain freedoms we’ve all come to enjoy. In the summer, everything is a little bit looser, free-flowing, and then school with all of its due dates and assignments threatens to wring all of that easiness right out of us.
But there’s also something comforting about the structure and the routine. It gives us a framework, a rhythm, and a certain predictability to our days. As the days get shorter and the evenings cooler, I like to wrap our routine around me like a cozy sweater knowing that I don’t have to plan anything. I just have to be present while our lives unfold.
My youngest son exhausted and fried from his first day at school came home and had a 40 minute tantrum.
My oldest son came home with an assignment to bring in a family picture–a request so simple if one actually has a family picture taken in the last five years that meets a fourth grader’s requirements.
And I, still shell-shocked by the six hours of quiet solitude, could only hear one thing looping in my head:
Here we go.
When Kaly doesn’t have her nose in a book, she wrangles and referees two elementary age boys and blogs about her humorous efforts to lead a mindful, connected life. She’s the author of Good Move: Strategy and Advice for Your Family’s Relocation a book about the craziness of moving with kids. Her writing has been featured on sites such as Mamalode, The Mid, In The Powder Room, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Scary Mommy to name a few. You can find her on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.
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