the back to school blahs

 
What Stan and Jan Berenstain failed to address in this cute little book was if their mothers were ready to send them :-)


I have been really bad about keeping up with posting the last couple of weeks. It's partly just about being busy, but mostly it's been that with each summer activity we check off our list {so to speak}, it's harder to avoid the fact that summer is very quickly coming to a close. And I just haven't felt like typing that sentence out quite yet.

Rebekah will be going to school, so it will be the first time since I was 20 that I haven't had a baby at home with me during the day. Maybe you need to back up and read that last part again...yes, that's right since I was 20 {since 5 days before turning 20 if we are being exactly exact}. I'm now pushing 31. So it will be different, and I'm sad to send them off to school. Even though I know they are wonderfully educated and taken care of there, not to mention the fact that I spend a lot of time in the classrooms myself, it's still sad. The secretaries have often offered me my own work space in their office, and that was when I still toted at least one little one around with me while I was helping out. So, I'm more excited and even more motivated to be there this year than ever before.

I remember bringing Alyssa to kindergarten, which really doesn't seem long ago at all! I watched the other families dropping off their kindergartners for the first time and many of the families were bringing their youngest child to school for the first time, as we are doing this year with Kamele. I saw two completely different emotions from most of the parents. Some were sad, others seemed relieved to have made it to this milestone with their kids. I remember thinking in that moment that I didn't want to be either family. I realized I was super content to forever stay in the "baby stage" with our family and I definitely didn't look forward to ever being that sad mom, and I couldn't at all relate to being the relieved mom. So now, fast forward five short years, and here we are, sending the baby who wasn't even born at that time to school. Blah!

I know whether I had four or five short years at home with the girls, or fifty years, it never would have been enough time. It wasn't one of those things that I was going to wake up one morning thinking, okay I've done enough of that, let's move on to something else. So the time had to come at some point, and for me that's this Wednesday at 9:10 am. The backpacks are packed, there's not much left to do.

The girls are for the most part very excited to go back. Emma has complained that they have to sit too much, so for that reason she's hoping to extend summer vacation as long as she can. Alyssa wanted her friend Molly to be in class with her, and they got split up, so that has put a damper on things for her, but overall I know they look forward to going. Rebekah is just happy to be able to pack up a lunch box and pretend to be a big kid. So I try to be super excited like they are, knowing how important their schooling is.

Something the girls weren't really excited about was my back to school photo shoot I did about a week or two ago. I wanted to get some really nice back to school pics to commemorate a big year, Alyssa's last year in elementary and Rebekah's first year ever. I discovered really quickly {and when I say really quickly, I mean the moment we stepped out of the car} last year that after 3rd grade, it is no longer a good idea to follow your child around at school, thinking you are going to capture any special first day moments. So I knew I needed to plan ahead. I think the photos came out cute, and I'll post them once the girls are back in school and I've had a better chance to look at them and choose my favorites. But I really had to work for them. I had visions of cute back pack poses and this is what I was getting...

 Little girls more interested in their shadow than the camera...


 Trying to decide if they wanted to laugh or cry.


 Hats covering faces.


 And just general, pout faces.


 It's okay, Rebekah, I feel the same way.