A Slow Goodbye To The Daze Of Summer

We have exactly 8 days left until the beginning of the school year.  Next Tuesday, CB and Pink will return to their respective schools.  Pink will go from a half-day Kindergartner, home at noon every day, to a full day first grader.  FULL day.  She'll leave me around 8:00 am and not arrive home until probably 3:30. 

In addition, Tink (my 4 year old) will start pre-school 2 days a week. So, on Tues and Thurs I will just have one child. I've gone from three during the day down to one. ONE. I thought I'd be doing a jig but in fact it's all a little bittersweet.

Therefore, our final week is serious girl time. We'll enjoy our last days of summer before the onslaught of homework and evening soccer practices, girl scouts, karate, lunch packing and obligation after obligation. Then the string of holidays will hit: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas along with 3 family birthdays squeezed in between. We'll hit the ground running and not stop 'til late January when we'll all likely hole up in the bitter Jersey freeze.


So for now, we will appreciate the concept of "nothing to do."  We'll appreciate the warm sun on our golden skin and the silky feel of slicing through the water at the pool.  We'll enjoy our last days of sandals and polished toes before we pack our feet up for hibernation.  Eight more days of pure, unadulterated lovely. Eight more days of seeing all my little girls every day and my "big girl" friends. 

The new school year will be full of fun and excitement, pride and challenges. I will love to watch it all unfold. But for now, I've got a good book, a fridge full of frosty beer, and a gaggle of little girls who smell of chlorine, and I'm planning on eating up every precious moment that remains of my

summer daze.