Mama would be the one with those blues, here; not the kids.

Both Madalyn and John-Zachary have been delivered to their third-grade and kindergarten classrooms, respectively. They were fine. I, not so much. Oh, I'm not in the depths of despair or anything but I will admit to feeling a bit blue. Part of this is due to the plain fact of summer being over. I, as I have often stated, hate the school-year routine. I dislike all the work we have to do every night to be ready for school the next morning. Getting up early is the pits, as is rushing around trying to get ready and get to school on time. Plus I resent being at the mercy of the public school system when it comes to my schedule.

Besides that, though, I am a little sad for another reason. The summer went by so fast and, somehow, it has suddenly struck me how few summers we have left with the kids being little. Sure, on paper it may seem like a lot -- Madalyn isn't even eight yet. But these three months blew by in a flash, and last school year went by very quickly, as well. I have no reason to believe this year won't be the same (especially with the busyness of having all three attending at least part of the time). Before I know it, it will be summer again and that summer, too, will be over in a heartbeat. And so it will continue on down the line until we only have two kids home during the summer....then one....then none. Not to mention that, sure, we may have another nine summers before the first one leaves the nest, but how many more of those will she actually want to spend the entire time with her family? We have very few years left before Madalyn starts branching out and leaving us behind, at least for part of the summer. JZ won't be too far behind.

Ah, but perhaps I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. After all, I'm sitting here, right now, with a small toddler next to me, who's trying to put on a pair of shorts and squawking in frustration because she can't quite figure it out. Just an hour ago I was worrying that JZ would be too bashful to ask his teacher to go to the bathroom when needed. So maybe we've got a little more time than I'm so pessimistically projecting. Still, though, it does remind me that we need to savor each day and not wish our lives away by rushing time to get to some far-off point in the future.

Enough philosophy. How about a couple first-day-of-school pictures?