September!

The big transition is well underway. Just when we all got the hang of laid back summer routine, we are thrown back into a new school year with lots of activities. I am both glad (I love a busy routine and organising lots of action!) and also mournful for our late night Dr. Who fests and weekends in water.

Monkey is on the travel soccer team, which means three two hour practices per week plus Sunday games. He also has weekly guitar lessons and Boy Scouts and has already requested basketball and winter snowboarding. I am also waiting for the homework crunch to begin as third grade is a big step up in studies. Why oh why wasn't I more militant about multiplication skills over the summer? We did quite a bit of work but it was not the hard core study fest I'd planned for us. I really, really tried. Truly I did.

But when your eight year old begins negotiations by pointing out your lack of a bona fide teaching degree and the futility of focusing on how much is 12 x 6 when there are lightening bugs just waiting to visit that glass bell jar with the air holes cut through the top - well, you remember what it felt like to be eight years old and pity the dirty boy who needs to be in a shower but only wants to be outside.


So we are enjoying our early morning Saturdays on the practice field. The sun is lovely at 8:30am on the soon to be fading summer greenery. My husband is an assistant coach and I love seeing them bond so firmly over a shared love of soccer. It has also been fun to reconnect with faces we haven't seen much of over the past three months. Bonus confession that I adore school supplies. Sharpened pencils and composition notebooks make me so darn happy!

Every year since Kindergarten we take his photo with backpack on while holding a sign like the one above (the color ink was low in our printer so I tried to dress it up at the last second with a bit of marker - lame?). It is amazing how much they change over the summer!

I couldn't resist taking pictures of the last wave of Sunflowers. It seems fitting to recognise their beauty just before the cooler weather begins to arrive. All things change and we are transitioning nicely. Did I mention Fall is my favorite season?