Mourning the end of an era

Up to this point my life as a mother hasn't been controlled much by anything but me. I got used to doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. We had a good schedule of things we were involved in and doing, but nothing we HAD to do, usually. Now school has started and it's all changing. I am officially controlled by the man now. I have to take my child to school every day or they'll throw me in "JL" (that's Jail in Sam's dialect of English). At least I tell Sam he has to go every day or we'll both get in trouble -- I didn't tell him I'd go to jail, promise.

I have to say that three kids at home at once did get a little overwhelming near the end of this summer, though, making me ready for school to start. You can only sing and dance for so long before you just want them to go and clean up their room just because you told them to do it. Can you tell I was ready for a change? But I will miss a few things like:

Lounging around in our pj's all day.

Camping in the backyard -- not caring about bedtimes or routines.
Lounging in the tent.
Boating with the girls.

Making cookies outside so we could recklessy sprinkle the dough with flour (and taking a bath on the grass with the hose afterwards).

Summer ended when I told Sam "Finish your homework first"." And then I realized I'm probably going to say those exact words a lot more for a long time. I can't believe Sam's in school. Gone are the carefree days of summer and here comes structure and schedules. Gone is my baby boy! But he's ready and I'm ready. It's not all bad, but it'll take some getting used to.

He could hardly sleep the night before he was so excited. He woke up early, brought out his carefully planned clothes, dressed, then asked me every few seconds when it was time to go. During breakfast he told me he felt like a teenager. Once the time finally came, he donned his backpack and jumped into my view saying "I'm Kindergarten Boy!"

That's his teacher Mrs. Stephens in the background. She's great!When I picked him up, he looked like they'd been performing China torture on him. He moped over to me and when I asked how it went, he said "Not good!" Day 2 and 3 have gone a little better, I think.

Our day is different without Sam. Lucy and I like doing girly things now like dress-ups and painting our toe nails. Ben jumps right in. He has lovely pink toes right now and he loves it. I don't know if things have changed for the better for sweet little Benny boy. Change is good, though, right?