When we were in Chicago, it started getting light at 5:00 AM. 5:30 greeted you with birds and enough sun light to make you feel like you've slept a good long night, no matter when you went to bed. 5:00 AM in Georgia is about as welcoming as a tomb and just as dark. 5:30 AM isn't much better. It doesn't get decently light here until closer to 7 and even later sometimes during the year.
I usually sign off with something like "The morning comes early..." for it usually does for us. 5:00 AM is early. Even when the kids sleep in, 6:00-6:30 is still considered "early." It's taken them until the last week of summer vacation to sleep past 7:30 AM. Mornings, early mornings, are something we are cursed to see.
Oddly enough, as the summer wears on and the mornings do inch later day by day, I start pining for those early mornings. Those really early mornings.
I truly admire stay-at-home-moms. There's no way I could do it. During the summer I feel my sanity leak out of me like a hole bitten into a zip-lock bag transformed into an ice pack given for some fictitious malady with the distinct instructions to NOT bite a hole in the bag.
Each year I try and this year camps made it a whole lot easier for the boy, but the girl's still too young and even she felt the strain. It's certainly a character flaw of sorts to wish away the summer, not so that the kids go back to school, but you do. I wish I could do it. I wish I could be the stay-at home-mom, but I can't and they truly have my respect.
So here I present to you, The Morning, for my friends, this is what 5:00 AM looks like again because I've finally reset my bedroom clock after the power knocked it out almost two months ago. School starts again for me this morning. I may be going to the restroom with five other women, but I will be going by myself with no one on my lap, no one offering suggestions, tips or pointers that I haven't solicited and no one passing me notes under the door. Bring on the endless meetings of nonsense, dress codes and ever changing school policies and procedures. Bureaucracy, save me a seat. Yes, I'll happily lug textbooks from the fourth floor when the elevator is broken.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the summer is over. I am going back to work.
(Before your northerners freak out - we did get out of school before Memorial Day.)
The morning comes early again. Sweet gardening dreams.
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January 27, 2015 - Family update
9 years ago
It's funny how different people are. I don't know how working women do it. Honestly. I couldn't. And yet, I certainly feel we ALL have to do what we're best with. So congrats on school starting for you! (and ADULT conversation and real clothes and everything else)
ReplyDeleteI raise my coffee cup to you!
:)
Still freaking out...It seems so early to be going back to school.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your first day back :)
I know a LOT of parents that breathe a sigh of relief when school rolls around again..and if you're working out of the house most of the year, it's really got to hit you!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if i should feel happy or sad. Whichever it is, I wish you and the kids a fantastic school year!
ReplyDeleteSue, SAHMs have my total respect. They all do it with a smile and love every minute of it. I get emotionally and physically tired over the summer, but never mentally and subsequently have a difficult time sleeping because I haven't worn my mind out. I read voraciously during the summer to try to engage it and it only marginally works. I actually put on dress shoes and make-up this morning. It feels good to be back.
ReplyDeleteGM - it is if you don't get out until June. I like getting in early - it just plays hell with transfer kids from the north.
Samantha - I think you're right. The transformation from working all of the time to being home hits me harder than the kids.
Ma, It's a very good thing. The summers are perfect for the reason that they help remind me why I love my job. I wish more people had the revitalization the summer gives me. The kids are ready to go back also. I think 2 months is a bit long for break. 5 weeks is perfect and then we are all ready to come back.
I just reread this and it sounds horridly depressing! Half of my thoughts didn't even make it on the blog as I was rushing to get ready, fielding questions from the boy and trying to convince the girl her alarm really does mean she needs to get up.
ReplyDeleteI really do love spending the summer with the kids, but it's like I told Sue above, my mind doesn't get tired during the summer and that's a struggle. The kids, too, are ready. Shoot, the boy asked me to buy him a math workbook because he was ready to start learning again.
That and the house just gets so filthy when we're in it all the time!! ;)
They all do it with a smile and love every minute of it..... Ribbit, ROFL!!! Oh, no we don't! :) Seriously, the ones who get my respect are TEACHERS, point finger back at yourself... you have the most infinite patience of all, having to deal not only with your own kids, but other peoples' all day! I do long for summer to end... just yesterday I got a new bike and thought I can not WAIT to go ride down at the boardwalk by myself after the kids get on the bus, I'm so sick of screaming at them to pay attention to traffic and look over my shoulder to see that they are still with me, does that make me a bad mom? LOL...
ReplyDeleteGood luck Ribbit, my wife starts back this week too with registration and the kids start on August 8. We are struggling to get back in our routine too, my daughter starts pre-k this year. Fun times.
ReplyDeleteLook on the bright side Ribbit, your days aren't 9 hours long in the winter time like ours are! :)
ReplyDeleteNO DOUBT, Thomas!!! That would just be depressing, I bet.
ReplyDeleteRibbit, this is the writing of a genius: "During the summer I feel my sanity leak out of me like a hole bitten into a zip-lock bag transformed into an ice pack given for some fictitious malady with the distinct instructions to NOT bite a hole in the bag." Have a wonderful first day of school! Let us know how the "Law and Contemporary Issues" class goes! That was another hilarious post. :)
ReplyDeleteGee when I went back to work the thing I missed most was summers with the kids. I was a SAHM for 12 years. Summers working was agony. I did hate being home with them when they were fighting all the time, but they quit doing that by middle school and became best friends by then. And even when they were younger they weren't too bad if you kept them busy.
ReplyDeleteWe did a lot of reading over the summer too. The funny thing is that I made the kids pick out ten books they were to read over the summer. 5 could be fluff books, but 5 had to be real literature. The fluff books were really just treats for them since they have always been voracious readers. I bought them for them an put them in their rooms. When they were older they both decided philosophy would be fun to study (at that point we occasionally had philosophical discussions at the coffee house after dinner). So I got five books of various levels of difficulty. I think that was the first summer we didn't finish our books. Though my daughter has always retained her interest in philosophy and belongs to the philosophy club at her university.
But I do hear you on your problems staying at home with the kids. I remember when the kids were of a certain age I instituted time outs for me. Really they were for the good of the kids.