Back To School Time! (AKA: The reason I'm smiling today!)

WOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Ahem... excuse my sudden burst of enthusiasm, but I gotta say that as a first time SAHM (remember what that is right?) this summer with school age children, I am pretty dang happy to have seen them off this week. You see I was a working mom for nearly all of my two daughters' lives. They are true daycare babies by nature and are used to spending their summers at daycare in their separate age groups, even if it was just after-school care as was the case with my oldest daughter the last few years. The point being that my girls have never ever spent so much time together as they have this summer and besides almost killing each other on numerous occassions, they came perilously close to being left in the "Critterworld" exhibit at the Museum of Science. I'm pretty sure I could have convinced security that it was an honest mistake on my part.

Don't get me wrong, I love summertime (a lot!) and I love being able to spend time with my kids in the summer especially. We had trips to the beach, the pool, grandparent's house, the amusement park, the go-cart track, the zoo, a few spot weeks of camp, and the previously mentioned Museum of Science just to name a few. Minus a few instances and embarrasing public scenes, most were generally fun and fulfilled the cherished "quality time" benchmarks. However, keeping an 8, 5, and 1 year old entertained for three months is not an easy task as I quickly discovered. I'm new to this being home with the kids all day thing people, and this entertaining crap gets expensive!!! Especially when you don't have that second income anymore. Seems like a sick catch 22 to me. More time, less money .... GO!

Now I know that there are SAHM's who are experts, and have all this "shiz" figured out. They get really creative, and fill their days at the park, at storytime at the library, or (gasp!) teaching their kids to cook and other really hands on stuff. Honestly, I tried these types of things (well maybe not the cooking), but it never seemed to work out. The park was a washout in June and part of July when we here in New England, were treated to Seattle's weather system for 45 days. And then as soon as the rain stopped and the sun DID decide to join is, it came out guns ablazing and with 98.8% humidity. Its not so fun taking your kids to the park at 7:00am in the morning, trust me.

The library for me was like taking monkeys into a china shop. I didn't know how quickly it would all come crashing down on me, but I knew it was going to happen. Brody, 15 months, playing in the very small children's toy area, decided to bulldoze every single Lego tower the other kids built. Needless to say, he was not making friends and continually removing him from the area made him errupt into pitch perfect meltdown after pitch perfect meltdown. The ladies in the library were not amused either. My oldest, Isabella who is 8, is pretty good in the library... by herself. However in combination with her sister, Isabella seems to go into pre-teen drama queen mode. I know her sister pushes her buttons all the time, but Bella hasn't quite learned how to take her "power back" and control her reactions. Guess she needs some more Oprah.

Speaking of her five year old sister ... besides her pestering of Bella, Sophie doesn't understand the concept of "quiet" ... anywhere! Sophie has two volumes ... loud and obnoxious. So picture two fighting and screaming girls over by the Junie B. Jones section, and a baby cutting his detructive path through other kids' Lego masterpieces, dashing their future architecture dreams for good. Then you understand why the library doesn't work for me, and why the bottle of Pinot later that night did!

Park and Library and other like activites behind us, I was basically reduced to keeping them in perpetual motion all summer long. Stimulating them in any way I could find. Whether the girls were boogie boarding on Block Island, or the baby was in the stroller at the zoo making animal sounds for three strait hours, we did it. And we paid for it. And we kept doing it and paying for it every week.

But to my dismay, it became a bit like shaving your legs ... once you start, you have to shave all the time. As I found out early on, those days where an "outing" was just not gonna happen, I was subjected to hours of "I'm bored" and "I'm hungry," interjected occassionally by screaming, yelling and crying. It was as if my girls completely forgot how to quietly entertain themselves for a few hours. I had created a couple of monsters!!!

So yes, although we had an amazing, memorable, experience-filled (and expensive) summer, I have been left exhausted with kids who can't seem to sit still for more than 5 minutes without complaint (unless their eyes are trained on the TV of course). So when they went off to school this past Monday, you might understand how relieved I really was. My wallet isn't moaning anymore, there wasn't a single "I'm bored" or "I'm hungry" to be heard all week. And wouldn't ya know, I haven't heard the Spongebob theme music for 3 days. Must be a record!

Did I mention it was Sophie's first day of Kindergartern too???? Oh yeah that. Maybe it was the years of daycare in combination with our hectic summer schedule, but where other moms might have been wiping their tears away as their child got on the bus for their momentous very first day of school ... I was smiling. Proud and sentimental yes, but smiling still nonetheless. Summer can stick around all it wants, but this mom is glad summer vacation is OVAH!!!!

MEOW!