Gathering the Reins from our Untethered Summer

The kids start school on Monday, and while I am usually overly melancholy about the beginning of the new school year and the routine that takes them out of the house for so long every week, I am thanking the universe in spades for the start of this new chapter for all of us.

A new (old, familiar) town, a new (my alma mater) elementary school, new friends, new grades, new beginnings await us come Monday. The kids are starting to get a little frayed at the edges almost as if they understand that the sun soaked afternoons are starting to get ripe and will eventually fade into autumn. I celebrated when they got out of school at the beginning of summer, so anticipating the lazy mornings and care-free afternoons. Lucky as I am to be able to work from home, the challenge presented to me has been a hefty one. Even with the wonderful babysitter we are all so fortunate to have a few days a week, the notion of actually separating myself from the kid’s activities and occasional arguments not to mention nap time and nursing schedule for Evvie, I have found very quickly that parenting and working are absolutely mutually exclusive for me, and I can’t do either very well unless I focus completely on one or the other independently.

The clarity that that came once I discovered that was freeing, though still didn’t offer many answers when it comes to actual deadlines and the needs of my children happening simultaneously, so choosing to focus on my children as priority has and will always come first. It’s time now for my big kids to focus on being students, making friends, learning how to behave and perform their best in an academic setting, ultimately priming and preparing themselves for many years of the educational system and figuring out who they are and what makes them happy. So much of the latter comes from being free and untethered during the summer months too and I’ve watched them grow and strengthen those freedom muscles that allow them to tiptoe around and dance as though they were independent of me and their father. It’s fascinating, wonderful, nostalgic, heartbreaking, and exhausting to bear witness to the growing that happens at 6, 7, 8, 9 years of age.

They are excited and ready for this new chapter, and I am eager to watch them blossom and see how the new people, places and things come into play during. And I am secretly praising the calendar for bringing  some order and calm to the summer chaos.