I'm gonna miss sleeping in...

Whatever that means to a mother of two preschoolers. Sleeping in changes meaning with each new phase of life. So, with a three year old and a four year old, sleeping in really means refusing to get out of bed until I can't block out the spanish speaking cartoon characters who are literally yelling at me through the neon glow of the TV. Especially with the early rising summer sun, the kids wake up at about six thirty a.m. Lucky for me they are just cuddly enough in the morning to climb into my bed and watch cartoons until I am ready to get up. I can get even more snooze time with the recent addition of our new babysitter, they call her iPad. I just need an app for making breakfast and I'm really in Heaven.

Buying some time in the morning is worth the cost of an iPad. I might even buy two to occupy both kids and maybe double my snooze time. But, even with this kid-friendly gadget, my current version of sleeping in is really only eight o'clock. Goodbye sleeping in, it's Back to school for this mom and her kids. And going Back to School means that I have to wake up, get out of bed and get ready to leave the house by eight. I might even have to set an alarm clock! Something I have never had to do since I had kids.

I will be missing my lazy summer mornings where all I had to do was:

Wake up to whiny child staring at me and peeling my eyelids open.
Grumpy child pulls me to the bathroom by my finger to help with potty.
Climb back in bed and get whacked in forehead by remote for TV.
Hope that the first thing to come on is a cartoon,
But not Dora or Barney.
Slowly drift back to sleep for approximately 1-2 minute intervals,
In between breaking up fights
And explaining why this TV doesn't fast forward like the one downstairs.
Repeat for 30-60 minutes, or until I give up and get up.
Once I go downstairs I clock in to my mommy duties:
breakfast, dishes, floors, wiping counters, wiping bums and on and on.

Oh, but those days are gone with the 100 degree temps of summer, and my life will begin each weekday with:

Wake up to sleepy child pulling my arm out of the warm blankets.
Snuggle squirming child for five minutes before declaring, I'm up, and making it so.
Do a quick face wash and makeup to force myself awake.
Scramble downstairs, eyeballing the roman numerals of large black clock on the wall
Counting down the minutes I have to feed the kids, pack the lunches, get them dressed, dress myself, wipe the spilt cereal, run back in for sunglasses, run back in for the inevitable last minute potty break then load the car, fill up with gas,
And go to school.

Drive for forty five minutes in the throes of freeway congestion
With kids who refuse to stop talking and watch the DVD player.
Pass my exit for school to reach the preschool, keeping an eye on the car clock's digital numbers
Counting down the minutes until class starts.
Figuring out how many minutes I need to sign in the kids and drop them off
In classrooms on opposite ends of the building (15-20 minutes)
Backtrack to the student parking lot (5 minutes)
Park (5 minutes)
Walk briskly to campus (15-20 minutes)
Take off my cardigan since I'm sweating from the walk (2 minutes)
Hit the bathroom to freshen up and so that I don't have to go after I buy food,
Because I don't want to take food in the bathroom (5 minutes)
Grab a bagel and fresh oj for breakfast (10 minutes)
Make it just in time for my first class!

So, if you read my summer mornings and wondered what could I possibly miss about that??? You can see what I'm in for with Back to School and that first description starts sounding pretty good, huh?

Fall Signals...New Shoes?

A cool foggy morning following Labor Day surely signals Fall is here, and Back to School is around the corner. After a hot, lazy summer of flip-flops and tank tops it's time to put on the socks and sneakers and dress to impress for the new batch of preschoolers. With two kids now attending the University preschool, many people will think they are twins, I'm sure. I'll get the questioning looks, disguised as sincere smiles and flattery about how young I look. But with the potty training in the past I look forward to the kids' new routine, even though it means I am going back to school too. My rigorous schedule of classes will be a challenge, but I just have to make it to Spring then I will finally be a college graduate!

So, back to school. I always get excited and anxious. I look forward to being productive, creative, busy. I also know that it means sacrifice. Drive thru dinners, looking past the pile of dishes and wearing outfits twice before washing. Ignoring the kids, or worse...yelling at the kids, while I try tirelessly to read 300 pages the night before midterms. But even with procrastination I get it done, and it feels good. I like pushing it to the deadline, the pressure, the rush of working obsessively to type the words out into some well-thought analysis, the realization that I can do it when I finally set out to.

Fall is finally here. We all have new shoes. Tristan has some white sneakers with navy velcro straps, Ashlyn has silver ballerina slippers also with velcro strap, and I have bronze ballet flats with flowers embellished on their toes, no velcro. We are ready to face a new crowd. I will be excited until I am actually sitting there in my first class, but then I can look down at my new cute shoes and smile.

By the way, we all can jump higher and run faster now, too.