So, that 6am sky is darker, and the air is chillier when I let the Beast out for her morning ablutions. The bags under my eyes are baggier and my coffee need greater. The laundry basket is fuller and the refrigerator is emptier. The energy is s o m u c h l o w e r and the to do list is so much longer.
The fall routines of back to school have begun, from earlier wake ups, to lunch making, to mounds of laundry (what exactly does everyone wear in the summer that causes the amount of laundry to double once school starts?), and now we are all eagerly awaiting the best part of the first week of school … the weekend!
When students and school staff walk out of the school doors this afternoon, when moms and dads bring their minivans full of childhood or adolescent bodies home, when parents park their vehicles on Friday evening, a sigh of relief will echo across the land.
This afternoon marks the end of making lunches (and driving them to school midday when they call to tell you they forgot it at home), the end of early mornings, the end of papers to sign, and an opportunity to relax and take a breath from the marathon that is the first week of school.
Truly, if we still have the energy and ability to read this post, lift our delivery pizza to our mouths, and flip the TV channels we can say that we have survived. I’m not talking thriving, just surviving!
The newness of pencils and papers, shiny running shoes, and finding out who the teachers are for the year have all come and gone, and next week it’s all just the regular routine. And, I have to admit, I like it. I fall into this routine so quickly, so easily, so naturally. It has been the routine of my life, minus my baby birthing and rearing season of life.
After all, a school year allows you to make countdowns …
only eighteen school days until Thanksgiving weekend
only fifteen weeks until Christmas break
only nine and a half months until summer break …
What can I say, goals are one of the keys to survival!
itsawonderfilledlife 