Last night I headed over to a neighbor’s house late, almost 9 o’clock, to join a few ladies in the pool with a glass of wine. As I walked up the driveway I listened to the chorus of tree frogs all around me, and watched the moon float out from behind clouds, and I took a deep breath. 

It has been a long summer. 

School starts next week for us, and while so many parts of the country already started, I kind of like the way my kids’ school eases us in with a short week before Labor Day weekend. 

This year we have a high schooler. I know what you are thinking – you do not look old enough to have a high schooler, Katie. (Bless you.) I am so excited for the next four years for my son. He plays football and they just had a big athletic meeting last night in the giant auditorium (the reason why I joined my friends at 9!). He is so ready for this change, and I am nothing but thrilled for him. 

But as my momma friends and I sat on the edge of the pool, our toes swirling in the water, our conversation became a big exhale about how hard transitions into and out of the school year are on moms. Change is hard, and moms just absorb the energy of our people.

My kids are relatively go-with-the-flow types, and yet all of these conversations were overheard in my kitchen. On the same day.

Is my lunch box here yet? 

I need new shoes. 

Can I get my hair cut? 

Can we go to the chiropractor?

You forgot to order pencils. 

When does the bus come? 

Can I please have one more sleepover?

This time of year is just extra. 

The summer we had was great for the kids – lake swimming, pool swimming, sleep away camps, time with Nana and Grandpa, lots of friend sleepovers, and very fun parties (please don’t take away parties again, Covid). 

But three-year-old twins are extra too. I spent most of my summer outside watching them play, while a mountain of work sat waiting for me inside that I could never get to. I have a lovely tan and a novel that is begging to be edited.  We have terrific sitters, but they had weddings and Covid and their friends and family also had weddings and Covid and surgeries, so that there was a perfect storm of very little coverage. I bargained with my teenagers just to let me work out and take a shower.

I could write about staying in the present moment and finding joy playing with my kids, and how I will look back nostalgically at these days. But sometimes it is helpful to acknowledge the hard rather than put a rosy glow on it. I suspect I will look back at these days and of course, remember the joy of chubby little cheeks and tiny shoes and speech patterns that sound like Elmer Fudd (the best), but I think it’s likely that I will also look back and remember that these were some of my hardest days of motherhood. This summer I learned that having three-year-olds who don’t nap and want to go outside everysecondofeveryday is a season of refining fire. Up there with husbands in residency and moving cross country. This summer I had to learn again about surrender.

There were a few life lines. Having a podcast, or book on Audible, or some YouTube interview playing was like oxygen. But still there was the unmistakable feeling of boredom creeping into my periphery vision. Usually I kept it at bay by meeting up with friends, doing some big outing to tire them out and I would catch up on all the stuff I had to do while they watched Tom & Jerry after. But those days, while not boring, were physically exhausting. From the second they wake up at 6:00 am – bright eyed, adorable, going 110 mph – to when they went to bed at 7:30, I was running. (This nightlight helped us push wake up time to 6am too, in case you have early risers.) Parenting toddlers and preschoolers is always hard, but I’ve had enough babies to know that special needs – Michael’s ADHD and sensory issues kind make Ronan’s Down syndrome an afterthought – is part of why this season is so hard. I will be very happy to pull up to preschool on the first day and wave at them as they go off with other grown-ups, while I go sip a coffee in the glorious sounds of quiet. 

Tonight at the dinner table, my big kids were asking each other if they liked this summer. “It was great,” was the verdict all around. It’s not lost on me how lucky we are, to have had good health and access to swimming and camps and the simple joys of childhood summers. It was deeply satisfying to know that for them, it was a good summer, even if it was a hard one for me. I worry a lot about how much the twins take from me, and how much the older kids have left over. So I’m taking the girls to Boston tomorrow for a much needed get away with just them, where they will have my full attention, and I can’t wait. We’re going to high tea and the museum and shopping, and connect before the busy year starts, and it is just what my heart needs.

I knew summer would fly by like it always does, and the first day of school has loomed ever closer on the calendar, quietly reminding me that this too shall pass. And that soon there will come days filled with lots of time for all of us to work hard and grow, sitting in neat and tidy rows of weeks and months. I will have delightful mornings to work on my novel, to polish it up and make it shine. I have lots and lots of driving to sports penciled in too, so Audible recs are appreciated. 

When I fast forward to next summer, I will have a licensed driver, and the twins will be four and a half! Those two facts will make for such a different season, one with less pressure to be sure. For now, I find peace in surrender. I also find peace knowing that change is inevitable, and as hard as it is sometimes, it is the thing that ushers you into new seasons, ones that hold the promise that things might just get easier.