From Sunday Morning

It feels like it's been forever since I just sat down with a cup of coffee and read blogs on a Sunday morning. Everyone is quiet and sleeping in (at 7:13am) because of a late night at the grandparents last night with cousins while the aunts and uncles went out for dinner and felt normal for the first time in way too long.

Somewhere toward the end of last school year, between an overwhelmed state of too-many-things-in-a-week and starting a new part-time job and doing everything I could to inundate my backyard with flowers, I deleted my feedly app from my phone and stopped opening the laptop. Then summer happened and I wanted to actually spend time with my family. Not that I don't always want to, obviously, I just really didn't want to spend summer trying to run away at every possible chance I could just to squirrel myself away somewhere to sit in front of a computer. So I haven't written much of anything. And I've taken photos, but most were with my phone.

And now I officially have two kids in school again and morning time that I'm able to carve out and dedicate to adult tasks like writing and research and garden planning for next year and finally clearing out the basement and 1,000 other little things that feel like they fell by the wayside this summer in a good way.

So, hi. I think I'm ready now. It's good to be back in this space.

First Day 2013 (Round 2)

I forget all too often how different he is when she's not around.  It happens so rarely, especially in the summertime, and it's not a good or bad thing, he's just so very different when she isn't there as a crutch, a shield, a Boss of the World, a best friend, an enemy...he's just him.  And he's so relaxed. (Other than when he doesn't get his own way...)

When I dropped him off, he didn't even say goodbye, he just walked right in and started to play.  It helps that he's in the same classroom with the same teachers and 90% the same kids as last year, but still!  He's the boy who's been asking me daily for the past two weeks if I'll please please home-school him because he just wants to be at home with me.  He's the kid who regularly asks to go home from fun excursions because, well, he just likes to be home and relax.  I think it translates as shy to the world at large, but I really think it has more to do with him just liking the slower pace at home without constant stimulation and being a general homebody, he's been like that since the day he was born. 

After I picked him up from school, we went out for a date for lunch to celebrate his first day (yay for coupons for free kids' meals from the library summer reading program!)  We discussed important things like how to draw a tornado (his favorite thing to draw,) why birds have different feathers, who he played with at school (Owen and Hudson and Irene,) what he wants to be for Halloween (a bull) and colored his menu all sorts of crazy.

The very best part of the day, though?  After we picked her up from school. We were all beat and they watched a show, but it wasn't enough letting go, so we just headed outside. It always works. They played and swung and did "gymnastics" on chair cushions and we ate mac and cheese outside and found a praying mantis and laughed at the chickens.  It doesn't take much around here, but sometimes we just need to check out a bit, especially in the midst of change.