Dreading it.

I'm dreading tomorrow.  Only a tiny bit, but at this moment the dread is all consuming.  The alarm clock will be sounding off early, five days a week for the next 10 months. With work, I have had to be up and out, but now we all have to be up and out the door and going well beyond 5'oclock.

I seemed to appreciate this summer so much more than before.  The girls are getting older and all of them are playing sports and involved with extra curricular activities.  Not only are we out the door early to get to school (and myself to work), we get home and have homework, (throw in a load of laundry), head to practices, (put a meal together), read, (fold laundry), shower and bed. 

I considered putting a hold on all sports and extra activities this year.  The days are flying by, the weeks turning into months and I now have a 6th grader, 3rd grader, 1st grader and preschooler.  My babies are no longer babies and I feel like I don't see them enough, spend enough time with them and all this other "stuff" has taken over and intervened with our time together. School is consuming enough, then add all the extras.  I am not sure why I didn't pull them out of soccer (or basketball or swimming or what ever the seasonal sport is), why I want them in music lessons, why I feel guilty if they don't get their 30 minutes of reading in each day.

But until I stop all the extras...instead of feeling overwhelmed with it, I have decided to wake up and move through the day with joy and appreciation for it.  I take turns being at each of their practices, I sit and read with them (I enjoy 30 minutes of a good book too), and I have realized that dinner can be fresh fruit and toast (and everybody is still happy).

What I really dread is missing them....