This morning, just after waking, Jesse asked me why Hans was wearing a shirt that was both backwards and inside out. I hadn’t yet noticed the shirt, but knew it had something to do with the fourth time Hansie’s cries had brought me stumbling into his room last night. There had been a leaky diaper. Wet pajamas. A wet sheet. And in my sheet-changing, diaper-changing exhaustion, how was I to realize the shirt I’d replaced his jammies with was either inside out or backwards?
And I’ll tell you another thing: I am only now – just now (this very minute on the very day before school starts) -- emptying my elementary kids’ backpacks; three months after they brought them home (teaming with every possible thing left over from nine months of school). How is this possible? There were final report cards in there! And a little Kindergarten graduation photo! And math packets that . . . if anyone had asked (and if I’d known they were in there) I likely would have insisted we’d complete over the summer (you know – to keep our minds sharp and school-ready). There were winter gloves in Anders’ pack for crying out loud! And broken, crumpled, bits of a fall leaf – that must have been collected . . . at recess? Or?
I don’t know. I don’t even know myself anymore.
As I was telling a friend the other day: I would have been an amazing mom . . . to like . . . five kids.
In any case, summer – the season that seemed an enormous, open space of time stretching before us and full of limitless possibilities only a moment ago -- has played itself fully to a close. The big adventures we were so excited for have come and gone (or never managed to fit themselves in), birthdays have been celebrated, parades have been attended, swimming lessons have been had, cousins have been played with, and, . . . we have failed to accomplish one thousand other things that we were certain we’d do (see earlier paragraph regarding math packet for one) back when we thought that space of time . . . would actually feel like an enormous space of time.
But school shirts have been picked out and registrations have been attended, and we are heading into another school year. And one more year from now, when we are back at this point, starting another school year, many things will have changed for our family. We will be experiencing a rather enormous shift as children begin finishing this stage of life and other large changes work themselves into our family. It’s a bit overwhelming to consider . . . when I’m capable of considering it. But very often, the rather ceaseless and ordinary demands and activities of daily life (toddlers that wake at night, backpacks that need emptied) keep my mind planted rather firmly right where we are now.
Which isn’t such a bad place to be.
