The Quiet Morning

I woke up this morning to quiet. It doesn’t usually happen on a Thursday.

I usually wake up to the sound of lawn mowers and weed whackers, revving car engines and the television blaring some Nickelodeon rerun. Today it’s quiet and it makes me a little sad. 

Two weeks from today, at this very time, I’ll have been up for hours, having woken up three sleepy children and compiled three lunches. I would have already made the coffee, fed the dogs, checked my email and brushed my teeth. Two weeks from today I’ll have all the kids back in school and as today is the last day of July, I’m wondering how we could have swept through an entire month so quickly.

Sure, it was filled with tennis camp and blog campaigns and family events but, we only managed to squeeze in one beach day and a handful of pool afternoons. While I did manage to finish painting Temera’s room and read a few books, I feel like I was deprived of enough of a summer. It’s just way too short.

When I was a kid, the summers seemed endless. What’s that about Phineas and Ferb having 104 days of summer vacation? We only had 57. I want a do-over. And TV lies.

57 days - for Temera it was about a week longer, but never long enough to actually be able to enjoy the summer. 

I’m really trying to get myself ready for the onslaught of homework, paperwork, school emails and endless amounts of school supplies. Although all the schools have transitioned to online everything… why do they still send home paperwork to fill out? I thought my homework ended back in 1987.

This year I have three schools to worry about. THREE. Elementary school, junior high and high school. I have two years of this nonsense before I’m back down to two schools. While I’m feeling like we’ve been at the elementary school forever (we have), I’m also aware that the high school years will fly by way too fast. Junior high went by in the blink of an eye.

So, I’m taking a few moments to enjoy the quiet. The calm before the storm. I’m soaking it all in before I crawl out of bed and really get into the day. Today is Temera’s last day of tennis camp. Tomorrow is Amanda’s first day with ASB. And Lauryn? I’m just going to cuddle my baby girl and hope she doesn’t give me that 9 year old attitude today. I want the next two weeks to be a great end to our very short summer break.

Maybe we need milkshakes.