Something That Started Out About Swimming, But Took On A Life Of Its Own.

Fourteen days. Fourteen more days until these children of mine are back in school. It has been a good summer, we've swam, swam and then swam just a little more. We went for many wave runner rides and did a lot of tubing up at the cottage. (My in-laws summer home on a lake). We swam in the lake every weekend, ALL. DAY. LONG. We have gone to the community pool and seen school friends, we have gone to a good friends home to swim in her pool, heck, we even bought a pool ourselves. We devoted two full months to the park district swim team, including daily practices and home and away meets.

Yes, it has been a wet summer. A summer of 7 bottles of sunscreen, a few nights of aloe when the sunscreen was not reapplied frequently enough, the purchases of 9 new swimsuits, at least 9 new beach towels, and countless floaties and pool toys. This is the summer Taco (5) learned to do a front flip off of our pier and the diving board at the pool.

In two weeks all of this wet fun will come to an end. Don't get me wrong...I am thrilled that the start of the school year is just around the corner. The start up of our routines and earlier bedtimes cannot come soon enough. It is time, the kids are ready and so am I. 3 of the kids will be at school all day, and Gracie(3) will be in preschool 3 mornings a week. I WILL BE ALONE, those 3 mornings, EVERY WEEK. It will be my very own stay at home mom utopia. I will watch Oprah, go to Target, go for walks, clean out my car, take a shower and put lotion on, all by myself. Did you get the part about me being alone? I may even shave my legs every single day. This will be a life-changing year for me, I can feel it.

As much as I am looking forward to these life style changes in the coming weeks, I will miss the kids and the lazy days of summer. I will never pass up a chance to sleep late, and now that swim team has ended, the kids and I have been in bed until 9 or 9:30 most mornings. Of course, I would never dream of sleeping in and letting Fiona (9) make her world-famous-put-'em-in-the-toaster-and-wait-for-'em-to-pop-up Eggos for the younger kids. That would be wrong. So wrong.

We've been spending time at the library, riding bikes, going out for lunch or for an afternoon Dairy Queen run, and really enjoying the days free of schedules and activities and rushing here and there. And did I mention that we have managed to do a little swimming? Oh yes, we've been enjoying this wonderful time together when we are not screaming at each other at the top of our lungs. So as much as I like to sleep in and lay around by a pool all day, the school year does need to start, for my own sanity and the safety of my children. It is time. Just like by the time next summer rolls around I will be ready for the school year to end. I will be sick of getting up in the morning, sick of activities, routines, and just want summer to be here so we don't have to go anywhere or do anything. Clearly this summer will be a distant memory by then. I will have forgotten that my kids NEVER stop fighting, or tattling, or changing clothes, or SPILLING DRINKS, or needing a snack, or saying "So, what are we going to do today?" I mean really, do these kids of mine every sit and play video games for hours like normal children do? The answer to that would be "why no, they do not." They are too darn busy following me around all day long.

And I will miss them when they go back to school.