Turn around.

I struggle with this time of year. The kids and I spend most of July averting our eyes when we pass the back-to-school aisles at Target, but now that I'm down to my last four days of vacation, I have to face it. Summer's over.

As I do every "new year," I'm trying to get excited about the students I'll get to know soon. I think about all the fresh starts, the many opportunities that await us. I remember my favorite lessons to teach, and I work on those lessons that need improving. It's exciting, truly. But I can't help but mourn the end of this family time we've shared over these 10 blessed weeks.

My fellow teacher-moms and I have discussed how we love getting to be SAHMs, even for a little bit, and how hard it is to give that up every fall. Because of our time with our school kids (important, to be sure), we miss out on opportunities with our own. I know better than to deny myself a little whining, a few tears. But I can't for a minute let that longing to enjoy eternal summers cloud my appreciation for our everyday, school-filled lives.

Several years ago I realized that if I'm living for the summer, I'm shorting myself out of a HUGE chunk of our lives! (Well, duh, right?) In my haste to rush through each school term to arrive at the summer months with my kids, I'd been barreling right through Ryan and Katie's school years. They grow up fast enough; why be in such a hurry to get from September to May?

That's a big part of why I blog. Posting vacation pictures is fun, and yes, if it's my blog, it's going to have an obnoxious number of football references in it. But really, my favorite posts are the ones that document those little achievements, those random moments, the laugh-out-loud incidents, even the bitter disappointments our family experiences. I guess blogging is my way of trying to slow the old carousel down a bit. If nothing else, it helps me remember the events that came on us in such a rush.

Which is why I pulled out my phone when Ryan sat down for his ID picture today.


Yes, my baby boy registered for high school this afternoon. Meanwhile, Katie's gearing up for seventh grade. I can see that they're getting taller, acting like teenagers, using deodorant, all that. Yet I struggle to believe that they're in middle and high school. In my mind, they should still be sorting the crayons and construction paper:



As the song says, "Turn around and you're tiny, turn around and you're grown..." I have precious few years left before Ryan and Katie are on their own, so I blog to hold on to the everyday, to appreciate the minutiae.

One thousand posts. Filter out the football, the funny links and the random nonsense, and you've got a pretty good idea of who we are—and how we were.