Summer...

Yesterday was our first official day of summer vacation.

Ten unstructured weeks that belong to no one but us.

Long, free days of endless time.

It's not really endless. I know this. But compared to the school year craziness of school drops offs, and pick ups, and end of year parties, and field days, and school lunches, and dance, and Brownies, and swim classes, and birthday parties, and homework, and trying to find time to wash, dry, and maybe even actually fold laundry, well, in comparison to all of that it seems endless.

For now.

We could go the pool, or have a picnic outside, or run a few errands and stop for ice cream on the way home.

Because this is Summer

But as I looked around, I realized that our house is a disaster and that first I must instill some kind of order.

I also did this because we had already been on summer vacation for two whole hours, and I had already broken up three fights and put two people in their room repeatedly, and then I heard this incredibly shrill voice practically scream that we do not eat birthday cake in the living room.

And I realized that the voice was mine.

So I thought I should probably take a little break

And that's when I remembered this is Summer, too.

I tried to start with  laundry, because our house is about to be swallowed up by dirty towels. And maybe also just a little bit because doing laundry briefly allowed me to lock myself in the family room with the mostly crazy but still entertaining Real Housewives of New Jersey. I also find them therapeutic, because as much as I dislike laundry, I realize that, given the choice, I would much rather spend every precious moment of my life folding laundry than having to interact with some of those women in real life.

But they found me. The kids, not the housewives. And then they thought that we were all going to hang out with the housewives, which for obvious reasons wouldn't have been the best plan.

So I decided to catch up with the housewives another time, and went upstairs to go through school bags, and binders, and folders.

I was trying to throw away most of it, and only keep a few things, but how to decide?

I noticed how much their work had changed between September and June.

B can write his name perfectly now.

N is writing stories like she's been doing it her whole life.

I think back to when she was just learning to write her name, and when B swore that he was never going to pre-school. Didn't those things happen just last week?

I go through folders of artwork made by small clumsy hands, and short answers written by an almost overly conscientious hand. Pages of the letter D printed over, and over, and over again. A packet of  the alphabet written in cursive. A picture of a stick figure holding a hose, with "I want to be a fire fighter" in a pre-school teacher's handwriting. A drawing from a friend, because that's what second grade girls do.

I think of where they will be a year from now, and realize that I don't even know. I have some idea, of course, of what they will be learning, and how they may change and grow. But I also know that when we get there, it will still surprise me somehow. As if they grew up without me knowing it. As if I somehow haven't been here every step of the way.

Except that I have been.

I know that I've been here, because I remember taking a three year old to her first day of preschool, as I carried her infant brother in a carrier. I remember going to her preschool graduation with him as a not quite two year old, and a brand new brother just home from the hospital. I remember her first day of kindergarten, and being home with two wild boys all day every day for two years, before one of them finally went to preschool.

It felt like finally. But now I know that it wasn't. Not really.

In B's binder, I find a butterfly made out of foot prints that I realize will no longer fit his feet next year. In N's, a handwritten answer contrasting caterpillars and people.

Caterpillars get to be butterflies after being in a cocoon. But people have to be teenagers first.

I have no idea what this means. It makes no sense.

And I know exactly what it means.

It makes perfect sense.

And so I keep it.

In fact, I keep almost all of it.

Some day I may get rid of it.

But not yet.

I think about O possibly going to pre-school this Fall. B's teachers have told me how ready he is, and I have no doubt he will do just fine.

And yet, he just turned three. He has time.

We have time.

At least, a little.

I look at the butterfly footprints in front of me, and the handwritten answer contrasting caterpillars and people.

I don't understand everything about caterpillars, and cocoons, and teenagers, and butterflies.

But, looking at these things, I know the truth.

Time is not endless

Not at all.