September!? Already?

Please don't close the pools! It's really hot at the playground!

My eighth grade science teacher Mr. Reffit had a sign next to the clock in the back of the classroom. It read:

To all you Clock Watchers:

Time passes -

But will you?

I was a HUGE Clock Watcher, thus this sign is forever imprinted on my memory - along with most of Mr. Reffit's axioms...(I never see an overhead projector without thinking of him.) I was always wondering how long until lunch...how long until Wed...how long until the weekend...spring break...summer... When I had children the clock watching officially stopped. Oh the times I have given this excuse: it's not that I forgot your birthday - I honestly do not know what day it is. The rhythm of this life space tends to push me along leaving me without energy or brain mass to think very far ahead.

And so I find myself here - surprised that its September, surprised that I have a real preschooler, who will be assigned classroom jobs and has her name on a cubby. I'm surprised to discover changes in myself: the grasping for survival of the past few years is being replaced by a grasping to hold on - to them and to these innocent times in which I am the Divine Mother Goddess and Daddy is a Rock Star. Sometimes "Mommy hold you Mommy hold you" can seem wearisome but I imagine "MOM. I told you I wasn't coming home last night. Didn't you get my text?!" is exhaustion on a whole other level. Oh September. Slow down just a bit...