1 Mother 2 Another

We’re into our last week before
school starts, and frankly, I’m pissed.


For whatever reason, this summer has seemed too darn short and too
$#@ing emotional. I don’t feel like I’ve had my fair
share of long, lazy days by the pool with the girls, eating
pb&js and spooning out frozen smoothies while we laze on our
towels. I haven’t hit that stage of “please, God, can
school start up so these kids will stop driving me crazy!!”


We all seem to be reeling with emotional hangovers right now,
coming off a weekend of back-to-back farewells: Thursday night was
a very sad culmination to a whirlwind summer shocker as some of our
best friends suddenly planned a move all the way across the
country. I lost a good friend, and Cora and Maddie both lost sweet
girls who were part of their inner circles. Then Friday we said
farewell to another family, this time moving to Austin and taking
their daughter, Cora’s best friend, with them.


So we’re walking around with holes in our hearts right now,
knowing that we’re supposed to be Moving On but incredibly
unwilling to do so. Which means I just haven’t found it in me
to crank up the School Machine yet.

Yesterday I woke them up early as we
prepare to being our early morning risings, but we spent the
morning playing around the house. Cora built a mouse mansion out of
tinfoil and odds and ends from the Invention Box – complete
with two stories and a balcony; a rock-climbing wall; a water
slide; a hammock; and a hot tub. Maddie read Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory for the fourth time. After a few errands and
lunch, the girls put on a show (shocker) and designed their
costumes for Halloween, building them from the ground up all by
themselves.


Who could possibly want these kids to go back to school?


Tomorrow we’re getting up early again – and going to
the pool. For the whole day.


I’m going through the motions, cleaning out backpacks and
packing them with Kleenex and band-aids, but you can’t make
me like it.