First Days and Crisp Nights

I love this time of year.  I love the excitement of new beginnings and fresh starts.  The nights are getting cooler and you can just start to feel a touch of fall in the air.  Some eager leaves are turning and fall sports are kicking off.  New backpacks and lunch bags.  Back to school shopping.  Loretta and I now wear the same shoe size.  She's 7.  That's just crazy.

This year Loretta is in 2nd grade, Caroline is in full day Kindergarten and officially riding the bus (still seems nutty to me that kindergarten kids ride the bus, once she gets in she's so small you can't even see the top of her head over the seat backs) and Sam is in Pre-K 2 days a week.  Each of the kids were so very excited to start school.  Caroline was a tiny bit hesitant to get on that big school bus the first day, asking Loretta to go first, but Caroline being Caroline plastered a smile on her face and hopped right on.  She's such a quietly brave girl because half the time you don't even know when she's scared to begin with.

The mornings are so busy and usually end in John and I doing a fair amount of yelling about teeth and shoes and not missing the bus.  But then there are a couple of minutes of calm, as we wait at the end of the drive and watch eagerly for the bus to come around the bend, when we can encourage them to have a great day and give knuckles and kisses and make heart shapes with our hands. Hopefully, in those few minutes, they forget the crazed yelling from a few moments before and just know how proud we are of them and how much we love them.


Because there should always be time for silly faces