A gaggle of almost-teens just ran up my block, my 12-year-old daughter among them. They are savoring the last weeks of the summer – planning water gun fights for 8:00 at night, when it’s almost dark, and milling among the crickets and cicadas, which offer the background music to these late-August evenings.
In less than a week, they will be returning to school, and I will be drawing my usual deep breath of relief. Although this summer has been different. In past years, as anyone who read my blog about doing the bus stop jig last summer knows, I have always counted the minutes until the school bus lumbers up the block.
This year, not so much.
This year, I am watching my teenager enter his junior year of high school - the most critical year before he begins the college countdown. I am watching my tween daughter enter the middle year of middle school, and start her preparations to become a bat mitzvah – an adult in the Jewish community. And I am watching my baby enter his final year of elementary school. No longer will I resent the ice cream socials at the beginning of the year taking up another night – and for which I always forget to bring toppings. This will be my last one ever.
We have already done our back-to-school shopping. No longer do I have to worry about the younger son being bored, running away in Target, or spilling crayons all over the floor at Staples. He, as a rising fifth grader, now has his own supplies to buy and takes it seriously. Now, the questions of what graphic t’s, sneakers and skinny jeans are as important as what composition book color to choose. And it’s fun.
In our two-parent working family, there is always one parent (read: me) for whom the summer is an enormous challenge. Ten weeks of a combination of summer camp, vacation, trying to work at the pool, and a few weeks of kids-at-home-with-nothing-to-do-but-I-still-have-to-work time. But this year, miraculously, those last few idle weeks have worked out just fine.
Part of it is because I took a little me time before it hit me – I went away on a writing retreat. But mostly it’s because my kids are old enough to enjoy themselves when there is nothing to do. We are fortunate enough to live on a block where there are kids of every age and stripe within a few houses, and our next-door and across-the-street neighbors are like family. This provides for plenty of fun, do-nothing-but-do-it-together time all summer long.
There is nothing I love more than sitting on my front porch, as I am doing as I write this, listening to the kids in the neighborhood chase fireflies and play capture the flag together in the middle of the street. Every kid, from the three-year-olds to the teens, participate. It’s magical.
So back to school this year is a bit bittersweet. It’s my oldest’s big year of high school – next year at this time we’ll be on college tours. And it’s my youngest’s final year of elementary school. Next year at this time we’ll be preparing for his waking up at 6:30 am for his first day of middle school. And while I will be very happy to be all alone by 7:00 in the morning at home (since I am a morning person biorhythmically and have been waiting for this moment for years), I will be a bit sad to be at the end of a long run of ABCs, pencil cases and ice cream socials.
So I am savoring these late-August moments, enjoying the cacophony of insects, children and love abounding on my block. All too soon we’ll be waking early, packing lunches, driving to soccer practice and tackling homework. And I will once again be the mom feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all, but still deeply appreciating every minute of this sweet moment in my family’s life.
Photo by KB35 via Flickr
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