Another year gone

No more 5.45 a.m. alarm wake-ups. No more packing lunches. No more trips to the bus stop, supervising homework, school projects, bedtime rushes.

And I'm ambivalent. I love summer vacation - who wouldn't? I love having the girls home, to swim, play with friends, go to the library, wtach movies, hang out. I loved it when they were little, and I missed out on a few years when I worked for the newspaper - talk about a job with no time off. Even holidays felt like an interruption of your work (it's the nature of the business).

Yet I'm sad, sad because it marks the passage of time. Never again will I have a second-grader. And my eldest will be a sophomore next year - which means she has only four summers left at home with us. And I'm not sure that senior summer counts - I suspect she will be mentally moving on by then.

But enough of the melancholy. I need to live in the moment, rather than dwell on what might have been. So, in that vein - hurrah! Summer vacation! Let the games begin!