I just counted 15 days until my kids go back to school. This is a big year for us. Avery will be in 3rd grade and Allie will be in 1st grade. My baby in full day school! Not only that, but this mama is a stay at home mom again! I had a very hard year last year, in the midst of many blessings of teaching jr highers. I loved my students and I love teaching math, but I hate having commitments that take priority over my family, like, say... a JOB tends to do. I heartily recognize that it is often required that moms work and I know God had that planned for me last year. I will be subbing throughout the year, which is a great job for me. I can turn it down when I need to and I get to enjoy feeling like a teacher off and on with no planning involved :)
Yet here I am, 15 days before school starts and I can't believe my kids are going to school, but I'm not. I have a memory of Avery when she was about 4, probably, and I thought to myself, "I can't wait until she goes to 1st grade!" Of course I felt awful for thinking that, since I just wanted her out of the house for a few hours a day and that just seems like a terrible thing to think as a mom. As she got older, though, I thought that less and less and when it actually came time, I had a pretty hard time with it! It ended up being so awesome, though, for her to grow up a little and enjoy school. And now Allie gets to have PE, music class, and eat lunch with her friends. I'm so excited for her!
I admit that some free time to myself sounds heavenly. Actually getting to clean my house alone (which I've only done 2 or 3 times in the last 8 1/2 years) will be amazing. But I'm finding myself wishing it wasn't so soon. I love the summer with my kids! I can't believe how stressful the school year is with kids in school. Already their homework seems a bit overwhelming, which is ridiculous I know. Plus we're so often off to soccer practice, piano lessons, or church... I just want to hide in the summer away from all our responsibilities. We even work hard at keeping our commitments low, but things still feel crazy.
But there's no stopping time, and the things that we are busy with are good. So I'm going to buck up and decide to hang on and enjoy the ride. And feel very strange when I sit down to each my lunch alone every day. Something tells me those girls are going to see mommy at school quite a lot :)
