teachers’ cookies, 1 september 2008
I’m a big fan of Amanda Soule’s daily blog, but in particular, her 30 days series that she does every once in awhile. She takes a break from much writing and instead publishes photographs that have a common theme and illustrate beautifully her family’s life in idyllic Maine through images and little words.
August was a whirlwind for us. We hit the ground running on the 1st and were still going strong (well, a little winded if truth be told) on the 31st. We hosted ten house guests and two birthday parties, we travelled to Iowa twice, and Kentucky once, we cruised the Mississippi river with friends one weekend, hit the roller coasters on another, and bounced the kid around between two different sets of grandparents who live seven hundred miles apart. We said goodbye to her old school and have been getting to know her new one, and nearly every night has involved some sort of art or craft or project this and that. And we have had trouble getting to bed for the past three weeks thanks to the Olympics and the DNC… and now that they are over, we can’t untrain our bodies from this nightly ritual and we find ourselves sitting at the computer blogging at ten til midnight instead of sleeping like we should be. Or like I should be. I think he just signed off behind me.
And we are tired, bone tired. Mentally, physically and emotionally.
Today we ushered in September with no less a frenetic pace…but that changes right here and right now. Tomorrow marks the start of kindergarten, and the readjustment to our lives and our schedules accordingly. Summer vacation is fun, but not always a vacation, and we are longing for some stability and normalcy and rigor. Getting up way earlier than normal won’t be too fun at first, but I’m looking forward to a night where I’m actually tired and wound down before 10 pm. She’s been trying out this no afternoon nap thing for the last two weeks, and she’s still falling asleep the moment she sits still anytime after 5pm. But she’ll adjust, we all will, and our new lives will become old routines soon enough, until we have trouble remembering what those grooves were that we travelled in before.
So I’m taking off SouleMama’s idea and launching thirty days::september. I’m giving myself the freedom to write as much or as little as I want to (which is not all that different than what I do now) but I will always have a photograph that tells a little about each of our days this month. And I promise, somewhere in the process I’ll tell you a little more about her school and how things are going there. The cookies above were made in Kentucky over the weekend, transported home, and decorated this morning. They go in twenty-one bags that have been assembled by the parents in the school for the teachers and staff as a welcome back gift – replete with coffee and Advil. As my lovely husband has liked to point out several times in the past week – it took me “all of twenty minutes before I was volunteering my cookie baking to the cause.” I do believe he contributed a bit to the offer as well… But the cookies were fun to do, and I think they turned out pretty well, and I hope the teachers enjoy them. E was pretty excited about them – she sorted the candy flowers and applied them with such care, and talked all day about her first day, tomorrow.
So, enjoy the next thirty days as we begin school, reboot and relax, and then hopefully end the series with the arrival of a new nephew. Here’s to a new school year, new beginnings and a new way of telling our story for a little while.
A new nephew? How exciting. Little boys are quite an adventure. Is Courtney expecting or Erin and Emma’s mom?
🙂