mixed emotions...

Warning: Lots of whining in this post.

For some reason I'm really struggling with the end of summer and back to school this year. Okay, maybe for lots of reasons...

• The summer blasted by in seemingly record time this year! Wasn't I just counting the days until the end of the last school year?


• Once school finally did end... I crashed! The last few weeks of school were a marathon and I so looked forward to a break.


• The summer wasn't really a break. Tons of activities going on while I attempted to slow down and enjoy.


• Slowing down to enjoy didn't really work. What ended up happening was that I stopped keeping up with the not so fun stuff (i.e. laundry, cleaning, summer homework) just so that I could relax occasionally.


• Not all of the activities were things that I would have chosen. This left less time to relax and less time to do the activities that we really wanted to do. I need to learn to say 'no' more often and more convincingly!


• Because of the "crash" at the end of the year, summer started off on the wrong foot. I wasn't prepared, I wasn't organized. We never did implement this. Bought the clipboards and started a list of chores but it never got off the ground. We were too busy running around willy-nilly without a plan!


• Lack of organization over the summer and my sad attempt to "slow down" left us unprepared for school to start. We crammed summer homework into the last week while trying to cram in the last bit of summer fun. NOT. GOOD. This is the first year that we only turned in the bare minimum and skipped over some of the stuff that is important but not required. Not a good feeling... former overachiever that I am. Ha, ha... who am I now, anyway!?!


• This school year promises to be crazier than the last. I am now on the executive board of the PTO. Scary. Once again... learn to say 'no' more convincingly. I love being involved at school but time is limited. There is only so much I can do. I am not one of those people that can be at the school half the day, every day. So many of the people on the board are those kind of people. God bless them. I can't do it. This also means I have to battle the guilt of not being able to volunteer as much in ways that benefit my children directly (i.e. volunteering in the classroom, being a room mother for Princess this year).


• The Boy is in third grade. How did that happen? This is huge! I remember third grade... vividly. This means he probably will, too. No slacking allowed... he will know some day! And third grade is the real deal... planners, multiplication, cursive writing. I'm scared!


• Princess is in first grade. She loves school... or at least she did when she could come home and see Mommy after a couple hours. No, she still seems to love school but laments daily about how much she misses me. Recess is at the end of the day and she tells me that the last couple of days she has missed me so much that she didn't want to play. She sat on a bench and turned down requests to join in. I know this will pass but I've got my own 'missing' going on. Did I spend enough quality time with her when she was here after preschool, after kindergarten? There's no going back...


• I am still on the fence about what to do with Cha-Cha this year. When The Boy and Princess were this age I participated in co-op preschools with other families. I've got nothing of the sort in the works for her. Guiltily, I'm relishing the first year in about five that I haven't had to chop my day into two hour chunks for preschool pick-ups and catching kindergarten buses. Though an entire day with her and no one else to help entertain her is not very productive either and it's EXHAUSTING, too!

Oi... enough complaining already! Sorry for the rant. I know I've got a good life. It's all just so overwhelming sometimes and I'm so easily overwhelmed lately.

There are still a couple weeks until the official end of summer, right? Still time to eat breakfast alfresco and go to the beach with Dad. Besides... autumn is my very favorite season!