Smiles for the first day

Hard to believe another school year is here. While my kids were sad to see their summer break come to an end, they were excited about seeing their friends and lugging their new backpacks and supplies, so I was able to get some smiles for the first day of school pic. Well....from 2 out of 3, anyway. My middle son (standing) is going through a phase of not wanting his picture taken, so most of them lately have either a grumpy face or an arm in the way.

And my middle schooler even cracked a smile.

My brain is fried

I always prided myself on my good memory when I was younger. I memorized the birth dates and phone numbers of everyone I knew. Now, I can walk into a room and forget why I was going there. All week long, I've been doing things or have had ideas pop into my head and thought "I'll have to write about this for the blog." And do you think I can remember them now? I really need to write things down more often! Well, when I remember I'll write it down and then get it on here. :) It's been a busy week. My brain is on overload!

Resisting the routine

Ok. I know I'm not the only mom that does this. Summer comes and bedtime gets pushed a little further. Wake-up time gets a little later. There are more sleepovers. Things get a little more lax around the house. Then as the school start date gets closer, I attempt to get back on track and that always comes with much resistance.

Hey, can I blame them? What's not to love about the unstructured, lazy days of summer? If I was 8 or 10 or 12 years old, I'd probably choose to play video games as much as I could and stay up as late as I could. It's just a lot of aggravation for a mother to return to the school routine after a long summer with no homework and no school bells.

One thing that does improve in my favor during the summer months is more chores for the kids. I get more help because they are home more. They have more time to help. And they are making more messes while they're home.

One week to go until school starts. I've instituted the school bedtime again, but for minutes - sometimes hours - after they are tucked in, they stray back in - hungry, thirsty, having to use the washroom, having to tell me something important. I have to start early...we'll see what progress I've made by next weekend.

Taking me back to the early days

Nearly all of my recent posts have focused on summer or the upcoming school year. So, I'm going to switch gears. It's been over 17 years since I became a mom and my youngest was born six years ago. It's been a while since I was in a hospital room recovering from childbirth.

I have a part time job photographing new babies and their families in the postpartum unit at a nearby hospital. I spend my time there connecting with new moms and cooing over their adorable little ones as I snap their first shots. I've been there done that. Five times I've been in the hospital with my newborn. In fact, I've worked at three different hospitals as a photographer and I'm now at the one where I delivered all of my boys. It's fun. I remember a lot of the staff members. The rooms are familiar. Although it's been many years since I was there as a patient, it kind of all comes back to you.

I remember the frequent wake-ups to check vitals. The agonizing up and down from the bed after my c-section. The aching to be with my little ones, especially #1 (who was in Neo-natal for 10 days) and #2 (who was in special care under billirubin lights unable to be held.) I recall that deflated feeling in my gut when my boys were circumcised. I remember walking the nursery to retrieve my other little guys, trying to get the hang of nursing and chatting with my roommates (at the time there were double rooms - not privates like they have now.) I remember enjoying the candlelight lobster dinner with my husband that they offered new parents on the terrace. I remember feeling so unsure of what I was doing the first time around and how heart wrenching it was to head home and have to leave my baby behind.

It's also interesting to see how things change. They used to recommend sleeping on the side. No more. Now they tell you to not even use blankets. There's no more baby powder use. Pacifier use is reserved for the bottle feeding babies. Rooming in is the norm, whereas they used to require baby to be in the nursery if you wanted to nap or rest. Now baby stays in the room with you, even if you can't keep your eyes awake. It's a given that dad stays in the room with mom these days, but when I was there, there wasn't any space for a cot or pull-out bed for a guest to stay in the room with you - there was barely room for a chair at the end of your bed.

It's a nice walk down memory lane to a time in my life that I cherish.

Nice to have friends around the world

When I was growing up, we were not a family of travelers. Aside from our visits downstate for family reunions and maybe an occasional jaunt across the Indiana border (which was about a 20-minute drive from my home), we were always at home. I did take a trip with my older brother and his new wife when I was about five-years-old to visit her family in St. Louis. I loved the long road trip.

Then when I was 12, my aunt and uncle came to visit in preparation for my big sister's wedding. They had no children, were both well educated and were educators themselves and world travelers. We'd seen them occasionally over the years and were fond of them both. We were fascinated by Uncle John, a native of Spain who spoke several languages. They offered to take us back to stay with them in Minneapolis and my dad's other sister and her husband, parents of seven with homes in Nevada and Missouri, invited us to their Missouri farm.

We were to spend a total of three weeks away from home.  The first two weeks were spent on my aunt and uncle's farm and visiting their neighbors and daughter on their farms. It was great to spend a couple weeks in the outdoors with open fields as far as the eye could see.

At the end of the two weeks, my Uncle John came and picked us up to take us up to their place in Minnesota. I spent my 13th birthday driving across three states. When we got there, we visited an amusement park and had fun in their neighborhood. For part of our stay, they had a house guest from Switzerland. We were tickled to be meeting someone from another country, especially when she gave us all some Swiss chocolate she'd brought with her. My aunt and uncle were such interesting people. Everywhere they traveled they made friends and kept in touch with the friends they made. I always admired that about them.

Fast forward a couple decades and my younger sister for several years has had foreign exchange students staying with her from such places as Thailand, France and Japan. We've enjoyed getting to know all these teenagers over the years and I think it's great for my kids to meet people from other countries and learn a little about different cultures.

One of my sister's former exchange students came back for a visit this last month. On her birthday, we went to a Cubs game together and went out for dinner for sushi (which does seem odd -- we probably should have taken her out for deep dish Chicago-style pizza.) She heads back home this week and we will all miss her. Another former student who was with my sister last year returned from Vietnam to attend college here, so for the next four years she'll be part of our family for summers and Christmas and Easter breaks. We'll enjoy having her around and look forward to meeting more friends from around the world as my sister continues to sponsor exchange students.

Rui, our friend from Japan.

Squeezing a lot into the last bit of summer

I typed that title and immediately it feels wrong. It isn't really the end of summer. Yet schools are getting back in session and the summer merchandise has been moved to the clearance bins. We're tricked into thinking summer is almost over, when in reality we just passed the half way mark. Autumn doesn't officially begin until September 23.

It all makes me a little sad that we barely get into summer mode and we're bombarded with back-to-school sales and school registration. It's getting to be like the Christmas push that once began right after Thanksgiving, but has now moved up to Halloween.

Back-to-school season used to mean mid-August back in the dark ages when school started after Labor Day. It slowly worked up to early August then July. Now stores are putting out back-to-school displays even before the 4th of July. My kids this year had their last day of school June 13. A week later I was seeing back-to-school displays in the store.

August tends to be the month when things slow down if you have children who have been playing baseball or softball or were enrolled in summer classes or camps. So, now we have some free days this week and tomorrow is the last weekday the pool is open. Boo!

I've tried to squeeze in a lot this past week -- water park, festival in Michigan, Six Flags Great America, baseball game. We also had our annual block party this past weekend. Lots of busy days. Just feels funny to be rushing to do things before the end of the season when the end of the season is still 39 days off.

A birthday day at the beach

My birthday was Friday and on the calendar I had written that we would be going to Six Flags Great America that day. However, I woke up that day and decided to reschedule. My dad invited me to lunch for my birthday at any place I wanted to go. I chose Olive Garden. Yum!

Here's me and dad after soup, salad, bread sticks and birthday cake!

After lunch, it was off to the beach. We had lovely weather for it. The boys had a blast. I had a blast watching them have a blast.