Farewell, Summer.

This morning I go back to school for my teacher in-service before the kids come the following week, which means officially, our carefree, no schedule summer days are over.  This will be the fifth time I have returned to school after summer break as a mom, and I am convinced more than ever, the transition just never gets easier. I am so incredibly grateful for my summers at home with my kids, it’s one of the reasons I decided to return to teaching, but it’s also so bittersweet and one huge emotional roller coaster once a year.  It always gets easier, and we make it work just fine, but I know any working mom can relate.  It’s pretty much the same feeling I felt that time I started bawling crying in front of the ziplock bags (I was getting to pack my lunch the next day) at the grocery store the afternoon before I was returning to school after maternity leave with baby Waverly. 😉

I am at a new school (which I am super excited about!) and will have a new schedule this year, basically going in a little later and finishing a little later in the afternoon as well.  This means that I will get to spend the mornings with the girls, help them get ready and put Waverly on the bus, but also that I will not be able to get her off the bus each afternoon.  This was hard for me, especially since it’s such a big year for her, but I am counting the positives, and am super thankful I get to see her off each day and that we have family & close friends who are able to be with her for the little bit until I get there.  With that being said, I am preparing myself for a crazy day the first day of school, I am not quite sure how I will ever logistically — and emotionally — get all three of us girls ready, get Avalon to her preschool (for the first time ever!), get Waverly on the bus (for the first time ever!), and then get myself to my own new school and not one big hot mess.  I know I will make it work though, because I am a mom, and isn’t that what we do?  And then I know it will take time, but we will find our way right back into a routine and all too quickly, another year will have passed and it will be summer break once again.

Sharing some more summer pictures, it’s been lots of barefeet and bathing suits and ice cream and late bedtimes and allll the summer things.  These truly are the days, the exhausting, long, beautiful and magical days, and I never want to forget them.