New year, lots of new experiences and big changes for all of us. My resolutions are simple. Stay afloat in the sea of work, school stuff, sports practices. Healthy habits like remembering vitamins, drinking kombucha, consistent bedtimes, home-cooked dinners, keeping up with the laundry, getting outside for a long walk or gardening during my lunch break. Buy mums. Eat figs. Go pumpkin picking. Family bike rides. Get peaches and apples from the farmers market. Lots of flower garden bouquets.
Oliver and Matthew both started school the first Thursday in September. Ollie is now in second grade, the big kids at his elementary school. He was so happy to go back and see his friends, excited to have his current teacher, he knows where everything is and has the confidence of a second grader. I think he's going to have a great year. I feel like this year I have a good handle on his school/homework/sports schedule balance and know what to expect.
Matt started preschool through our school district. It's full day, five days a week with busing door to door and on the same school calendar as Oliver (spots are done through a lottery). Matt's bus schedule is almost the same as Oliver's, so it's ridiculously convenient. And Matt LOVES going to preschool so far. He's in an amazing program (it's a grant-funded pilot program to showcase the importance of universal preschool for the state, growing each year until there is a spot for all preschool age kids in our town) and I think he's going to have a fantastic year. I'm having a harder time watching him grow up.
In honor of new beginnings, I'm working to finally finish updating the boy's bedrooms to match their current older selves. We've been doing it in bits and pieces all summer, but I didn't get as far as I would have liked (mostly thanks to the garden redo). Their interests and needs have changed so much since I last shared pictures of their rooms, I'm excited to finish them and share updates.
I'm sad summer is over. There's a sense of freedom and possibility in the summer, even with working full time, that makes my heart happy.The long evenings of light where the kids play outside. Fireworks, backyard blow-up pools and catching fireflies. Afternoons at our town pool, watching Oliver brave the high dive and Matt jumping in from the sides over and over. Day trips to the beach. The gardens full of flowers and everything looking so green and lush. We went on vacation to Cape Cod when the world was still in full Summer and came home to early Fall. There's a noisy chorus of crickets, the light has changed, the plants are starting to look straggly, a few trees are changing color at the tips. It gets dark way too early. Casual neighborhood play dates get cut short, or don't happen at all because of so many sport practices.
And my to-do list is short but pressing. No excuses, the deck needs to get stained. And we need to do our big drainage project in the way back of the yard, if for no other reason than that darn rock pile in our driveway has got to go. Mike needs to reseed the bare patches in the lawn.
I struggled for a few days when we got home trying to get organized for the new school year. A million pieces of school paperwork, updating calendars and a whole bunch of new responsibilities for me (somehow I got roped into being on the board of our school's PTA this year, which is of course a lot of work). While technically I have more time now that Matt's in school full time, I am also busier than ever (fill the void!). And honestly? I really miss all that extra time with Matt. I miss HIM. The house is too quiet. I am reeling a bit from the fact that I will have both kids in full time school from now on. This is our new normal.
So this week is all about good routines. And surviving 6 sports practices/PTA meeting/Back to School night. Some Fall yard cleanup. Co-organizing our neighborhood block party for October. And unpacking that final bag from our Cape Cod trip that I still haven't gotten around to.
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