School Days, School Days

We are sub-seven days away from school starting up for the boys of the Nowell house and, as far as I can tell, everyone is ready for the routine of Fall to kick in.

Except me. I'm lamenting the fact that school ushers in early mornings. With early mornings come earlier bedtimes and with earlier bedtimes, I have to be an adult again.

WHINE.

Why, you ask, would I have to become an adult AGAIN? Did I lose my status somewhere along the way? Why, YES, I think I did.

In retrospect, I've been a "pseudo-adult" all Summer long. Case in point:

1. I usually wake when the kids come padding into the room, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, to see if I'll cave in and let them watch cartoons "just once"*. I can USUALLY be relied upon to actually get OUT of bed within a half hour of them entering the room.

2. If the kids return to try their cunning negotiation skills on me again, I firmly refuse their TV request and delay breakfast for another 15 minutes because, in my mind, it's Summer and we shouldn't be on such a rigid schedule**.

3. On more than one occasion, the doorbell has gotten me out of bed, as some contractor has shown up sub-9am, sending me into a dressing frenzy that looks like a cross between the Tazmanian Devil and a model backstage at a designer runway show***.

4. Breakfast has recently slipped into the uncomfortable time slot of brunch, during days that DON'T start with "S"****.

5. Cleaning? I have but one, worn out excuse: every day, new people enter this house to work on some sort of renovation. They always produce dust, dirt, or general odors. No sane person would clean in this environment.

6. I resolved to try to save the environment this year and, accordingly, am only using my "real" everyday china. Therefore, there are always dirty dishes in this house. Why try to keep up with a never-ending proposition?

7. Lunch? Well, let's just say, it's on the fly and occurs sometime before dinner. On more than one occasion, it has resembled a heavy snack on an airplane.

8. Afternoons. Can you say "catch-up" time? Budget work, blogging, laundry, blogging, driving kids to destinations, blogging*****. Need I say more?

9. Our house now has cocktail hour by the pool. Since the kids like to swim almost every afternoon, I sacrifice and enjoy a tasty beverage, poolside, while playing fully-clothed lifeguard******. Can someone help me get the song "Cocomo" out of my mind? HA, ha. Now it's in yours, too.

10. Laundry. Oh My Jeepers. I used to complain because it took so long. Now, it finishes too FAST! I can't keep up with all the laundry in the baskets that is clean. If this is supposed to be efficiency, I'm a monkey's Aunt.

10. Dinner? Dinner-schminner. It's been on the table before dark-thirty every single night since school let out****. And, it's been balanced, thank you very much; I've made sure each munchkin knows how to carry his plate with BOTH hands.

11. Bedtime. Well, let's just say that, if the kids make it to a horitzontal position before 8:30pm, Mike and I are doing the happy dance. We, on the other hand, are asleep in front of the TV by 9:15pm and actually get up to brush our teeth between midnight and 3 a.m. on a regular basis.

What has gotten into us? We used to have sticks up our posteriors. Did they break? Have the fair Nowells gone mad?

I'm not sure. THAT'S for sure. I hope not; I hate surgical procedures. NO--I don't THINK so.

What I do think is a feeling of being "home" settled into our bones once Summer actually began. The house was no longer so foreign; it was ours. Even though it wasn't perfect or perfectly finished, it finally wasn't in the way of our "routine". So, we let down our guard and sunk into the process of letting go of our lives on Heathermore Drive and took on this new life on Briar Cove.

And, we love it. For the first time, in a long time, we've had lazy afternoons, unscheduled periods of rest, and the ability to say "yes" at the last minute. It has felt really good.

But, just around the corner, the routine machine is kicking into high gear. I hope it doesn't suck me into it's grips quite as heavily as it has in years past. We've worked on keeping our after-school activities to a bare minimum and I hope this will add sanity to our lives this Fall.

Now, if I can just figure where to hire a cabana boy and how to have cocktail hour, poolside, year round, MY school days will be PERFECT.



*Truth is, I'd probably agree to letting them shave my head bald if they'd let me sleep ten more minutes. Let's just keep that OUR little secret, though.

**Maybe, just maybe, my prayers will be answered and someone will slip in the front door with a breakfast buffet and I'll be spared morning kitchen duty.

***HUGE emphasis on the Tazmanian Devil in this sentence. Need I admit: uncombed hair and unbrushed teeth. I really should pay these guys a premium.

****This is SO uncharacteristic of me I can't even describe it. I've always been the three square meals and a bag of Oreos in between kind of girl. BRUNCH is NOT part of that equation.

*****I think someone in this house might lose his mind if this doesn't become a PAYING gig. It's somewhat of an obsession.

******And, in case you don't think a clothed lifeguard can save a life, I dove in earlier in the Summer to save a swimmer who was precariously slipping under water well above his head. Scared the living crud out of everyone in the pool, including the potential drowning victim.

****Though I BARELY made it one particularly fine July evening when the margaritas were flowing.....