So, we’re at the end of the first week of school, and already my kids have each missed a day due to illness. Ty missed the first day, staying home to watch movies and veg out while his fever ran its course. Leah stayed home yesterday, her second day of middle school (when locker assignments were made, no less), and lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling.
Today, they both went off to school, and I felt a corresponding energy lift—like my brain was finally free to relax, focus, and engage with what I wanted to engage with (work, actually, but focusing on work without kids hanging over your shoulder is fun. Well, that, and I like my work).
I guess the upside to the bad colds is Leah was forced to relax about locker partners and who it would be and where her locker would be and what the combination would be. Not everyone relaxes in this situation, of course, but she actually did, much to my surprise (she’s the type who plans down to the last detail), and I think reconciling with the unknown was a good thing for her. Plus she got the locker issue resolved today, and all is well.
My kids don’t get home until 3:45 this year. Wow. I feel like a free woman. And I also see just how fleeting it all is. Ty will be a middle schooler in three years. Leah will be a high schooler in three years. She will be graduating high school in seven years. Seven years. In ten years…okay, you see where I’m going. I’ll stop.