End of Summer

Big Girl, NYC, July 2012.

Today is not only Labor Day, it's the last day of Big Girl's summer vacation.

School starts later than usual this year, although I have to confess that I enjoy the post-Labor Day start, which reminds me of my childhood school days. August is not a time for school, but September is!

Big Girl begins 5th Grade tomorrow. The big 5th Grade!!! Her last official start to an elementary school year. Where does the time go? She is 10 years old, a whole decade. And six years into school, almost halfway there, with seven to go. I don't want her to grow up. I love my Big Girl and her sweetness!

Tomorrow I will be packing a school lunch again. (Need help with saving on school snacks? Read this article I wrote recently!) But today I will enjoy a lazy day. When looking back to our summer of 2012, I originally thought we didn't accomplish much. Days with toddler twins can seem blurry and hazy and since we didn't embark on some fancy summer vacation, it feels like it wasn't a summer to write home about, as they say.

But it actually was! When I dissect our two months in my mind, we accomplished about half of our very long Summer Bucket List -- when I wrote it, I never expected to do it all (50 things in 77 days?? Too much.) But we did get through about half of it, which is something of which to be proud.

We went to Vermont, New York & Cape Cod; saw outdoor movies and an outdoor concert; had a picnic, enjoyed ice cream, and played mini golf; did craft projects; Big Girl had time at LEGO camp, learned about kids and safety at a babysitting course, learned a new pop song on the piano and entered a contest; swam in the pool and at the beach; went to the zoo and the PEZ factory; read books, enjoyed Big Girl's birthday, took walks and visited at our neighborhood block party. It was a good summer for us, with twin toddlers and a tween. As I look back, past summers had not been so good to us -- last summer we lost our beloved dog -- so I hope to definitely wax nostalgic for the summer of 2012.

I hope you are all are savoring your Labor Day, enjoying time with your families. I feel the impending insanity of school starting, with events, volunteer obligations, the impending holidays. But I welcome it all. As I've said previously, it's the little things these days.