Simple times.

I keep getting flashbacks on Facebook to this trip we took when we were abroad for Steve’s sabbatical. Then I found this old Dropbox album I’d forgotten about when loading a different set of pictures, and this shot was in them. Simple gelato stop in Rome, kids all looking much littler than they do now. I just loved it. Time seemed to stand still, and I’m not sure what about it made that so. We were active, sometimes exhaustingly so, but entirely out of our normal routine. We were together so much, which drove us crazy at times, but when, looking back on it now, feels so precious. We were busy, but not the same way we are here. Now, we’re coming up on school for everyone and I’m sort of wishing I had a time machine to bring me back to that slow life.

A new year, new teachers, and for William, anyway, a very new threshold crossed. We just dropped him today at his freshman year. He’s not going far, and I plan to be the Mom who pops by unannounced just outside his dorm window whisper-yelling, “William!” and demands he take me to breakfast on his meal points, but even so. We were there and now we are very much here and this invisible threshold that he can’t see, but is so clear to Steve and I, is crossed and that’s that. He’ll come home again, yes, but he’ll never truly live at home. That little boy who used to make police siren noises by the hour on the third floor while playing with Lego City set ups is now sleeping in a dorm room elsewhere (happily, I might add–and I really am so grateful for that) and it’s just tough to wrap my brain around. I made his bed up with the new bedding he got, and he’s got a family picture framed on his desk, and Steve unpacked his clothes in his closet, while Nathaniel gave him a tour of the dorm (he lived there too!), and it feels like several very important things on the to-do list of your kid moving to college were completed before we exited the campus. Check, check, check, and check.

Anders, crossing his own mini-threshold (a small threshold; one that a spritely three year old can hop over), will be in preschool this year. Minimally, because, after all, I am still very much me. He’ll only go two mornings a week and I think that will be a perfect start. We had a little “orientation” day if you will, and he declared while playing in their outside space, “I really like this school!” It’s the sweetest space, with the most wonderful people–same place Parker went for pre-school and I’m happy to be back. Parker will be in first grade, the big change here is that it’ll be full day. I wish it weren’t if I’m being honest, because I think it’s just too long and he’s still little, and I’d just like him with me for more of his day, but it is what it is. I’m grateful that we had the opportunity to do a half day Kindergarten like we did last year. And, you know, I do believe he’s actually ready for it which makes it all sit in such a more peaceful spot in my heart and brain than it would otherwise. Lindsey is going into her junior year, and I know that college for her is lurking just around the corner. William’s four years of high school really seemed to zoom by, fast even by my standards of time, so I’m just here holding on watching her go. She’s in about a million advanced classes, plus sports, so this will be a busy year to be sure. If anyone can handle it, though, it’s her.

I’ve got some big kids, and life has been good to me.

But summer, not done with you yet.