[3-2-1, action]...."AND....we're back."

Thanks for waiting so patiently for me while I pulled the good old fashioned 16 hour workdays of a stay-at-home mom in summer. Seriously. They didn't give me a break all summer. The 3 musketeers woke me up and they put me to bed.

Let's move forward from here, shall we?

This is the first full week of school and I now have a 3rd grader and a kindergartner. And it's lovely!!! They get on the bus at 7:25 and the bus brings them right back to me at 3:20. And it's lovely!!! Oh, how I love them--let me count the ways. But, let me also just say that I love the instution of education with almost as much zeal and passion. I don't know if I mentioned this yet this morning or not, but just in case....The School and the Bus: it's Lovely!!!

My neighbor Kirsten was outside this morning when I was shooing the kids down the street to the bus stop (it's 3 houses away). I guess I was getting a little overzealous about making sure they were down there ON TIME and in position because she totally called me out. "You seem a little overly intense about getting them to the bus stop, huh?" :o) But, she can only say that since she is equally excited about the institution of education as I am....(she's got 2 boys of her own, you know?!?)

I now have the nearly-2-year old at home, so my days are still full--which is why I thought there would be no tear shed on the first day of kindergarten for Maddy. (Will is still a big, busy handful!) I chuckled to myself that morning when I saw a mom leaving the school with her husband's arm around her while she sobbed. I sighed under my breath, "rookie mom..." and rolled my eyes just a little as I hurried my kids down the hallway to their classrooms. We got Maddy's stuff put away in her locker, found her name card at a table and she had no more popped the top open on her playdoh before my eyes were completely filled with tears! WHAT?!? Had somebody just sliced an onion or were my allergies acting up because I had no emotion about the starting of school prior to this moment! Well, I don't have allergies and there were no onions....which meant I was actually CRYING. I gave her a big hug, told Will to tell her goodbye (that was actually the saddest part for me because she and he are big buddies....she's his little mama!) and left as quickly as I could. I got to the parking lot before any real tears flowed...

The picture function thing is acting weird on this page right now--I'll have to post the rest of my pics later.

And I promise to attempt to write another blog post sometime before Maddy starts 1st grade...