It’s been a lovely and quiet summer.  Not in real life but on this blog and now the kids are back in school and I can hear my own inner voice again.  Yay fall.  Putting everyone on the bus the first day was bittersweet.  It always is, but they were craving routine and if I had to referee one more argument about who gets the middle row in the car, I was liable to drive off and leave all of them standing in the parking lot of Costco.  For four bliss filled days, they lapped up a new school year and fresh teachers while I organized closets I’d been just throwing crap into all summer.  And then they came home.  On Thursday.  For a four day weekend.  And they were exhausted.

I knew I was in for it when Lucy burst into tears as she walked through the front door because the backpack she begged for in NYC is the worst thing ever.  Abe fell getting off the bus, scraping his nose and sending him into a weeping litany of every thing that has ever gone wrong for him in the history of forever.  Maggie was silent, just dropping her backpack by the door and throwing her teeny self onto the couch where she promptly fell asleep.  Labor Day weekend is so cruel.  We have just summered the heck out of these people, gotten our first taste of alone and now they’re back and they’ve brought their friends: Argument and Boredom, who hung out all weekend and drove me nuts.  I brought them to the bus stop on Tuesday with my own dear children and told them they were no longer welcome.  Unfortunately, they are stupid and got off the bus with my Smalls that same day.  We’re only just beginning to shake them now, a full week later.

For all you moms who completed your bucket lists this summer: well done you.  For the moms who didn’t even bother to make one, but kept your babies alive and fed, who called it a good day when nothing broke and you read them a story: well done you too.  Summer is my favorite, but back to school is a close second.  I crave the routine it brings and the joy of having those babies walk in the door after school is so yummy someone oughta figure out how to bottle and sell it (all proceeds to the kid’s teachers).  Summer holds victories and defeats, and both in spades.  We failed at our summer reading program but no one drowned in the pool.  We never made it to Mackinaw Island and Abe hasn’t really mastered a 2 wheeler, but we picked strawberries with our owns hands and made jam that was so labor intensive we are saving it for a special occasion, like when Jesus comes.  The dogs didn’t get walked as much as they should have, but everyone learned how to pull weeds, except Maggie who literally doesn’t have the arm strength to do it.

We have summered these kids to within an inch of our lives and it has been amazing. Mamas, you have done this and you deserve a pat on the back and a whole lot more.  God bless the teachers who have grabbed the baton out of our shaking hands and are running with it.  If you homeschool, and therefor are the teacher, you are my hero.  Seriously.  And I know there are a lot of feelings that come with sending babies off on that bus, so let’s chat about that soon.  Maybe over a cuppa?  Until then,

this is me being real.