Ah yes.  The first days of summer vacation — can you smell it?  That unmistakable scent of longing and anticipation and blissful freedom and abandoned lockers with lingering gym socks left behind to rot.  But let’s not get too excited about all the ice cream dates and zoo trips and hiking trails and bike paths and soccer games that loom in our collective futures.  

So goodbye, easy mornings with just the baby while the older kiddo was in preschool.  You were amazing, preschool mornings; you entertained my child with finger-paints I didn’t have to clean up, snacks I did not have to parcel out, and tubs of glitter I did not have to patrol.  Goodbye, craft supplies that I did not have to dig through while trying to keep a baby from fussing! Goodbye, several free hours with which I could go to the coffeeshop and hope the baby would fall asleep and maybe read a chapter or two, or write enough to come near my wordcount goal, or just zone out, full stop.  Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

So long, I say as well, to the quiet neighborhood at night.  I can already hear the incoming shrieks of children long after dark, the pops and cracks of backyard fireworks, the loud BOOMS of the baseball stadium and its industrial-strength fireworks that seem to happen every night from now ‘til Labor Day.  Peaceful evenings, we barely knew ye!

And goodbye, ability to leave the house without slathering on sunblock!  You were so nice, Cool Spring Days, of which there were, let’s be honest, about two and a half in total.  Still, you shall be missed! We will be here, greasily missing you.

To you, empty playground at 10AM, I bid a fond adieu.  I know from now on, if I take the kids to the park before I head to work, it’s going to be very, very busy.  Goodbye, close parking spots! You shall be missed, No Long Line For The Family Restroom.

Farewell, too, to the nights when I could say, “You have to go to bed because it’s a school night.”  You, perhaps, dear excuse for early bedtime, might just be the most missed item of all.

As I survey the incoming wreckage that will surely be my house by the second week of no-more-preschool-mornings-with-two-kids-underfoot, let me shed a silent tear for my sanity, my carpets, my getting-older-dog’s stamina, my washing machine’s chugging-away ability (because lord knows I’m going to put that machine through its paces now that full-on kick-the-big-kid-outside-to-play-screen-free time is here).  

Yep.  It’s time to say it together.  Deep breath. Deeeeeeeep calming breath.

HELLO SUMMER!

(And hello evening bike ride and ice cream jaunts and the perfectly-pitched ping! of the kids playing backyard baseball in the empty lot next door, and hello popsicles on the porch with the kids and hello porch beers with my spouse when the kids have been put to bed and hello fireflies that my daughter chases in the gloaming, eyes bright, laughing rising into the night sky.  Hello, hello, hello.)