1m2aSandbox

We’re into our last week before school starts, and frankly, I’m pissed.

For whatever reason, this summer has seemed too darn short and too $#@ing emotional. I don’t feel like I’ve had my fair share of long, lazy days by the pool with the girls, eating pb&js and spooning out frozen smoothies while we laze on our towels. I haven’t hit that stage of “please, God, can school start up so these kids will stop driving me crazy!!”

We all seem to be reeling with emotional hangovers right now, coming off a weekend of back-to-back farewells: Thursday night was a very sad culmination to a whirlwind summer shocker as some of our best friends suddenly planned a move all the way across the country. I lost a good friend, and Cora and Maddie both lost sweet girls who were part of their inner circles. Then Friday we said farewell to another family, this time moving to Austin and taking their daughter, Cora’s best friend, with them.

Yesterday I woke them up early as we prepare to being our early morning risings, but we spent the morning playing around the house. Cora built a mouse mansion out of tinfoil and odds and ends from the Invention Box – complete with two stories and a balcony; a rock-climbing wall; a water slide; a hammock; and a hot tub. Maddie read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the fourth time. After a few errands and lunch, the girls put on a show (shocker) and designed their costumes for Halloween, building them from the ground up all by themselves.

Who could possibly want these kids to go back to school?

Tomorrow we’re getting up early again – and going to the pool. For the whole day.

I’m going through the motions, cleaning out backpacks and packing them with Kleenex and band-aids, but you can’t make me like it.