Enjoy the End of Summer

This is not one more post about heading for a quick day at the beach or finally visiting the zoo before summer vacation ends – although I’d love to do both of those things. This is about my five years at home with my daughter coming to an end. Yes, she attended pre-school for three years, but the shortened school year and 12 hours a week pale in comparison to the August to June, five day a week, seven hours a day absence that is now looming before me, just weeks away.

In four weeks my first born heads to kindergarten – you’re going to hear this many times over the next four weeks. It has begun to consume my thoughts, to move me to frequent tears. To her I am the reassuring mother who helped pick out adorable clothes and fun hair accessories. One day this week we’ll head smiling to Target and fill our baskets with pencil cases and crayon boxes – our first experience shopping from a “Back to School” list. But at night, to my husband, I am a whimpering, shaking mess.

So how will I enjoy these final days of no schedule, no school buses, no evil “system” stealing my love? I will:

• • Stay in my pajamas all day and invite my children to do the same.

• • Picnic on the bed for no reason other than because we can.

• • Eat breakfast for dinner and lunch for breakfast and have tootsie rolls for snack if we deem ourselves worthy.

• • Enjoy the remaining days of my only alarm clock being my children snuggled on both sides of me in bed saying, “Should we get up yet, mom?”

• • Read books because I choose to, not because it’s assigned reading.

• • Take my babies shopping and devour juice boxes and soft pretzels in the middle of the day…during school hours.

• • Have movie time Monday in the middle of Wednesday morning.

• • Hug.

• • Kiss.

• • Snuggle.

• Love….