Back to … wait, where are we going?

September 27, 2016

August is boardwalk, and beach, funnel cake. August is ice cream and sunsets and paths to the water with sea grass whispering and dancing with each caress of the wind. And if you are lucky the days blend together and you loose all sense of time, Monday or Thursday, 2 pm or 4 pm, it doesn’t matter… Not with the ocean breeze and your children laughing in the surf.

And now Monday is field hockey, and soccer, and Tuesday is dance, and field hockey, but never every Tuesday, only every few. Layered with forms, and forms, and schedules, and carpool (thank God for carpools!), school supply lists which never seems to end. “Mom,” I will hear, “I also need graph paper” or “I need another binder.” I have been to Staples and 5 Below more than seems proper or should be allowed.

Back to school night and squeezing in 3 classroom with 2.5 and .5 overlapping presentations in 45 minutes. The gun sounds and I off relying on strategy and will. New teacher: priority, don’t know her, 5th grade math: priority, followed by teacher I know: also a priority, just not a priority priority. Enter classroom, listen, leave note, draw (not very good) pictures, comment on fill in the blank, repeat, repeat, more forms, and forms. Or Middle School which involves 8 of 8 minute periods, the bell rings, we dash across a dark California style campus, students throughout directing the masses of parents searching for the C building, room 132. Realizing how independent they become, how self reliant, and self regulated.

Almost 8:25, time for the bus!

My son remarked the other day at dinner, looking pensively at his older sister, “I can’t believe Maggie is almost in high school.” And I turned to look at him, bewildered, and realized, 7th is followed by 8th and then high school. My baby is almost in high school.

And I take stock of my children sitting around the dinner table and want to cherish every moment. Because we will blink and it will be Christmas, and then we will blink again and the summer will return, and again, and my baby will be in high school.

Back to school makes me nostalgic I said to a friend, and I always just feel… sad. They are growing so fast… my voice trailed. It’s when we check the time she said, September, January, June. It’s when we look at our watches and realize how fast it is all going.

I watched my youngest run towards the water at the beach this summer. Her bouncy run with 2 braids bobbing up and down and saw a flash of her as a toddler, the same spirited run cacooned within. 2 pig tails replaced by braids, one piece replaced by 2. Same child, same run.

Back to school is mayhem. I get through it, and everyone is stationed where they need to be, and when, with the supplies or sporting equipment, or whatever it is they need. By some grace, it gets done. But I miss them as they grow. I miss them even from yesterday. And before I know it my baby will be in high school. Live this day. I just checked the time, our children are growing.

Written by Mary Kate O’Malley