Last Days of Disco

I registered the "babies" for kindergarten a few weeks ago.

I don't call them "babies" anymore of course, but that's what they will always be, technically.

The enormity of impending kindergarten is not lost on me.

It's been a looooong two years. It's been wonderful and maddening and exhausting and frustrating and ridiculous and hilarious and stressful and a gift.



When I lost my job just over two years ago, my life changed overnight. Never in a million years did I imagine myself as a "stay at home" mom (and I don't consider that I ever have been since I was fortunate enough to fairly effortlessly segue into steady, part-time freelance work at home). But there is no question that in the last two years I have been "home" much more than I ever was with any of my children. And I don't think I've made any secret of the fact that it hasn't been easy. Of course it hasn't been.



I feel like it's all been leading up to this--the "this" being kindergarten, aka, a full day to complete my work (imagine!) and all the other endless tasks that go along with a house of six that includes four young children. Right now, I bookend the bulk of my work in about three hours in the morning (the amount of time I have once I get all the various children to all of their various places before it's time to pick the twins up from school) and at night after they all go to bed. There's a babysitter in there when work gets particularly overwhelming. I also answer work emails and phone calls and address inquiries throughout the day. And yes, I am basically a crazy person because of this.

I despise being rushed. I abhor doing things "halfway." I detest leaving dishes in the sink and crumbs on the counter and Lego bricks on the carpet in front of the coffee table (OUCH) and laundry unfolded in a basket, but this is what I have learned to live with in the last few years. I pick my battles, I look the other way and I have learned the hell out of prioritizing, compartmentalizing and yes, time management.

I HATE losing my temper and running out of patience but I am human and I have done just this, more times than I am proud of. Because, helloooo, stress.



The days have been long, for sure. Going into this whole "working from home" gig, I knew this was IT. Once they start school? You lose a tiny bit of them that you just never get back. I know this because of Leo and Ellie. These last two years I've done my best to pack the twins' days while also getting my work done. Before they started school in those dark, snowy months right after my full-time job ended, we made the rounds at library story times and used afternoon grocery trips as a way to stay busy get out of the house. Then in September of 2014 both twins were in school five mornings a week, and I got a taste of what life COULD be like when I had the time and space that I had once known. It was a tease of the future, of a life with "big kids."



Once we were no longer slaves to the afternoon nap (at age three, when Lucy put an end to THAT nonsense (groan), the twins started the requisite afternoon classes--gymnastics and swimming at the local community center, two days a week. And sometimes (OK, often), trying to slide dry clothes onto wiggly, still-damp bodies that won't stand still long enough to get properly dried off is about the LAST thing I feel like doing, but I tell myself, SELF? This is it. This is what you do. Because there will never be 1pm swimming classes again, ever. And sometimes we even stop for ice cream on the way home, because that's what you do too.



And now, officially registered for kindergarten and on the precipice of full-day school for ALL four (three at the SAME school? What the what?), it just feels...big.



We sold this bad boy a few weeks ago. Of course we hadn't used it in a while but still...I haven't been without a stroller in my house for...eleven years. It's the end of an era, to be sure.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, as hard as things can feel sometimes, I do my very best not to wish time away. Some mornings when I'm getting breakfast on the table (three different drinks for four kids) and packing lunches and snacks into backpacks and someone is playing a keyboard and another person turns on "Knuffle Bunny" on the CD player at full volume, the very hairs on the back of my neck stand up because it is SO EFFING LOUD and it feels like the walls of the house are going to close in on me.

But then Leo's bus pulls up and he gets on and is off to middle school. And then the rest of us load into the van and sing "Cheerleader" on the way to Lucy's school. And then we get home and Harry's bus is waiting for him. And then it's just Ellie and me. And then she's skipping down the hill to the blacktop where the third, fourth and fifth graders line up.



And then, it's just me. And it's quiet. And sometimes it just feels altogether unfamiliar.