I woke up to a foggy morning, with my five year old wedged between me and the hubs, both of them breathing deeply. I lay quietly, appreciating the mirrored lines of my husband and daughter's faces and watching the gray light slowly turn golden.

Nine days ago, I packed three lunches and headed out the door into a foggy morning just like this one, walking all three of my children to elementary school for the first time. My husband walked with us, and the kids took turns racing ahead and dropping back, bubbling over with excitement about the coming year.

The older two were buzzing with speculation on which friends they would see first, and where they would sit in class. My youngest? We had a hard time keeping up with her to hear what her thoughts were.

As we made our final approach to the school, all three kids tried to shake the parentals.

"Mom, I KNOW where my classroom is."
"Dad, I've got it from here. THANKS."

Even my youngest tried to lose us as we wended our way through the throngs. She figured her brother could escort her just fine.

I don't know about the rest of the people there, but seeing that giant backpack on my tiny daughter made me tear up, just a little bit. I know how fast it goes. I know that by the last day of school in May, that backpack won't seem so gigantic, and she will be profoundly different, in marvelous ways.

We managed to escort Miss Independent to her classroom, and after helping her find her name tag and put her backpack away, she kissed us firmly and shooed us away. We lingered for a moment outside the classroom, and then, holding hands, went to peek into the classrooms of the older two kids.

After a few minutes, we turned to walk home. By that point, the fog had completely lifted and the day was promising to be sunny and warm. We navigated the quiet neighborhoods, and when we reached our driveway, the hubs gave me a quick peck on the cheek, and he was off to work.

I went inside and made a cup of coffee before logging back into my work email. I meant to celebrate in some small way, but those precious hours were gone in a blink.

At the end of that first day, I picked up my kids who all talked at once, eager to share their first day experience with me. They all love their teachers, they have good friends in their classes, they are excited about the new school year.

I can't express what a relief it is to have the kids excited about their classes. My oldest, the fourth grader, is in a fourth-fifth combination class, with an enthusiastic teacher who is letting the kids get a class pet. I cannot tell you how many hours I've been treated to discussions of the merits of Teddy Bear hamsters versus regular hamsters and possible names and requests to go purchase chew toys for the yet to arrive class hamster. This kid of mine is beyond excited and is already planning ahead to our weekend at home with the class hamster. She hopes it will be for an extended weekend! Maybe over the winter holidays!

(yay!)

My son has already made a few new buddies in his class, and is eagerly planning his 8th birthday class treat. It involves Pokemon and lots of sugar. I apologize to both his teacher and the parents of the other kids in advance.

My youngest comes home singing every day, wielding crafts and doing the chicken dance. She's totally in her element, and I'm so grateful that her adjustment to a full day of school has been smooth.

As for me - I'm adjusting to my newly empty nest in stages. It is a shock to the system to have uninterrupted hours, and I've yet to find a new rhythm to my day that will allow me to accomplish all that I need to during the school day. The return to a scheduled day has me mentally chipper, but my long hours and little sleep over the last few weeks have made my feet sluggish.

Slowly, slowly, we're adjusting. The kids come home wired but wiped out. We fall in bed exhausted after our newly busy days, and wake up reluctantly. But now, nine days into it, my body is catching up to what my mind had already embraced.

As I lay in bed this morning, watching the spreading sunlight climb the window frame, I felt a little bit of peace enter me. The fog is lifting, and a beautiful new day is here.

We're off to the swimming pool to celebrate The Removal of the Stitches. I'm in the mood to play.

Posted by Jenny at 8:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) ||

Two days after the stitches incident, we were scheduled to take a quick camping trip out to the coast. In that I've been working long hours this summer, and we were hit with that nasty flu, we haven't been able to get out and do much with the kids. In years past, we took vacations to Disneyland and Lake Tahoe. This year, the neighborhood pool or a Target run was about as exciting as it got. Even the county fair fell on a weekend where I was sick as a dog and physically unable to traipse around hot tarmac for several hours at a stretch.

So, the fact that the kids had an at-home, pretty boring summer with the exception of a few day trips orchestrated and carried off by my parents, I've been feeling pretty cruddy about my performance as a parent. Thank God for the stitches episode. At least the kids could say they got to see the inside of the ER!

Once again, my parents stepped up to the plate and booked a campsite for the last few days of summer. We drove out to the campground mid-day on Sunday, with the plan of staying two nights, and returning home on Tuesday. My parents, seasoned camping pros, picked an awesome campsite and proceeded to get the whole place set up with our inept but enthusiastic assistance.

The kids spent a good hour sliding down the sand dunes and hooting like gibbons. Only after the fact did it dawn on me to check my wounded kid's bandage. Um, whoops.

Removal of a sandy bandage, plus washing a freshly stitched incision to clear the sand off of the cut while restraining a screaming five year old in your lap? Not for the faint-hearted. I mean, I don't blame the kid one bit, but shuddup already!

Once that little bit of drama was taken care of, we ate a quick lunch and headed down to the beach. We played with whoopie-doopies (that's the latin name for those giant seaweed things) and the kids dodged the waves.

I lay on a blanket like a beached whale and sunburned the fronts of my calves.

Back at the campsite, my mom took the kids to pillage the surrounding campsites, to see what had been left behind by departing campers. They returned with a really cool fire-poker thing, and were pleased as punch about it.

That night, after a great dinner of lasagne and a mug of wine, we sat around the campfire and watched the the kids put on a light show with a few emergency light sticks.

The husband spent the entire time poking the fire. Poke, poke, poke. I don't know what was so fun about all that, but he was totally into it. Shortly after dinner, we noticed that the people in the campsite next to us had returned. My mom got all sheepish and said - "Oh! Uh, I think we took their fire poker." Whoops again.

We had brought the dog along, and one moment she was sitting with us by the fire, and the next minute she shot off behind one of the tents. A moment later she was back, smelling strongly of skunk.

GREAT.

What to do, what to do? It seemed like an indirect hit - she was stanky, but it hadn't gotten in her eyes. The kids did the sensible thing and went straight into the tent and to bed.

The hubs, with blood in his eye, grabbed a flashlight and strode off into the darkness from whence the stank had come. I don't exactly know what the plan was, but in my universe, one does not go looking for skunks. Especially in the dark. I yelled "Hey, what are you going to do? Illuminate it?"

Back at the fire, cooler heads prevailed as the rest of the grownups tried to work out the logical thing to do.

We could try to wash her!
No, then she'll just be wet and stinky.
We could tie her to a tree for the night!
But then again, she'll probably go after a skunk/raccoon/whatever, plus she'll cry all night.
We could take her home to our house!
But then the car will reek of skunk, and we just had it detailed.

This went on for about 30 minutes, while we all did our best from touching the dog, who had decided that she needed to sit on somebody, like NOW.

Finally a decision was made. I had to get up in the wee hours and rush home to work until lunchtime anyway , so we wrapped the dog in the scuzziest beach towel in our arsenal and settled down for the crappiest night of sleep on record.

Cold and stiff, the hubs and I detangled ourselves from the sleeping bags at 5 am and after a quick pre-dawn jaunt to the toilets, we grabbed the dog and headed for home.

We put her on her tie-out in the yard, and I got to work before 6 am. After a quick shower, the husband decided that he wanted to blow off work, and he left for the campsite again. I stayed and worked until about 1 pm, and then got back on the road to the coast, leaving the dog staked out in the fresh air.

Back at the campsite, I greeted the family, read a People magazine, ate a bunch of trail mix and took a slobbering, deranged nap in the tent. We put on 700 layers of clothing and sat around the fire as the fog rolled into the campsite. The hubs departed for home, and after a few campfire songs where no one could remember more than a verse and a half, and about half a bag of marshmellows, we tucked the kids in for the night.

We had planned to stay up playing cards and talking, but my early morning hours have turned me into an early-to-bed kind of girl, and I barely made it an hour past the kids' bedtime before I was nodding off in my chair.

Another cold, uncomfortable night ended at the break of dawn. The kids got up and we helped break down camp. By 10 am, I was on the road back home, and back to work by 11 am.

The kids had a marvelous time, sandy wounds, skunks and all. I can't say the same for the dog, but as for me - well, at least I get to say I did SOMETHING with the kids this summer.

____________________________________________________________________

Want to hear about one other sweet episode from this summer? Check out my what happened when I agreed to review M&M's Premiums for BlogHer.

Posted by Jenny at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) ||

Yesterday morning, I woke up at my usual 4 am to begin work. By 6:30, the kids were percolating around the house and I could feel the floor vibrating with the force of their energy.

At 8 am on the dot, they shot out the front door into our still-foggy yard. I heard the side door into our garage being opened, and shot out of my office. The garage is not a place for them to play - we've got a bunch of stuff out there I don't want them getting into (holiday decorations first and foremost - my nine-year-old would have us in the Christmas Spirit year round if given half a chance.)

Anyway, I opened the front door and ordered the kids out of the garage. The phone rang, I turned to grab it, and 30 seconds later, my five-year-old stumbled through the door with a bleeding gash in her lower leg.

Apparently, in Circus Language, "get out" means "quick, hide!"

In an attempt to hide herself, her leg scraped against a broken light fixture that is too big for our normal trash can and sliced her calf open on some part of it.

She was crying, but more from shock than pain. I took one look and knew it needed to be stitched. Heaving her into my arms (and a hefty sigh for the loss of the next few hours) I calmly directed the other two kids to finish getting dressed and brush their teeth and hair while I dressed the cut as best as I could and got dressed myself. Within 10 minutes, we were in the car on the way to the ER.

Mercifully the ER wasn't full at that hour, and we were seen with only a 20 minute wait. I had put the stink-eye on my older two about being calm and quiet and patient, but my son couldn't shut up. The kid seriously kept up a running monologue the entire two-plus hours were were at the hospital.

I pity his third-grade teacher.

The hurt one held it together until we were ushered into the exam area. An extremely curt nurse, who apparently didn't believe in sugar coating the facts, even when faced with a crying, tiny five-year-old, spread a numbing agent on a pad and slapped it over the cut area.

"Mom, you'll want to hold that in place."

When my daughter started whimpering in fear and asked the nurse if it would hurt, the nurse said "YES." Then she gave me the stink eye and stalked out.

She sure helped matters along. I guess dealing with a scared five-year-old is no different than an incoherant drunk or something.

Anyway, the rest of the ER visit passed in fits and starts. I got a nice sucker punch to the jaw when I had to hold her down for the numbing injections. She also screamed at her brother "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

I like that approach. Pass the buck!

By the time we got her calmed down again, it was time to irrigate the wound and then stitch it. We survived with no punching, but I did get clawed when the doctor accidentally pulled a leg hair.

Back at home, she cuddled up in my arms for about 2.5 seconds before falling asleep in an exhausted, soggy heap.

Nothing like back to school photos featuring stitches, huh?

(this happened a week ago - I've got a bunch of half written posts to finish.)

Posted by Jenny at 8:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) ||

Next week at this time, I will have all three kids in school. My emotions have fired back and forth between elation and a low-pitched mourning. It is the end of an era, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Back in those predawn hours of the baby and toddler years, I'd stare bleary-eyed towards the future. Those were precious hours, when I could remember to appreciate them. Feeling duck-downy hair under my chin, hearing the deep breathing of a child wrapped in my arms, watching the sun rise and greeting another day with My Life's Work nestled in my lap.

The days when my kids would all be old enough to leave the nest for a big part of the day seemed far, far away. I would have long conversations with friends, anticipating the coming freedom. For a while there, using the bathroom without the possibility of having a conversation about Pokemon seemed to be the pinnacle. Chores would get done! Dinner would get planned! I could work out unmolested, or run errands that are painful with even a single kid in tow.

Of course, all that was based on my assumption that I would not be working full-time. C'est la vie.

I remember blogging about my jealousy of other moms who had actual kid-free time.

And yet, with each dawn, I realized that I was a short-timer. These kids were growing like weeds, absorbing knowledge like sponges, and preparing to fly. Suddenly this whole kids out in the world thing didn't seem like a good idea, and I was tempted to keep them close, stunt their growth, clip their wings and keep them with me always.

And then they'd spill an entire gallon of juice on the newly mopped floor or something. As Jenijen once said, there is a market for Military Boarding Preschool.

When my oldest daughter began kindergarten, I cried and blogged and cried some more.
When my son began kindergarten, I was sad, but I recovered.
By the next year? I danced in the parking lot.
When my youngest daughter walks into that classroom next Wednesday, I honestly don't know what I'll do.

That bleary-eyed glimpse of the future is coming into sharp focus. I think I need to go snuggle some sleeping kids.

Posted by Jenny at 5:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) ||

The Lauck family is driving in the car. The husband is driving, Jenny is riding shotgun, and all three kids are in the backseat. The van has a dead battery - which could be because we just had it detailed. Perhaps it derived some terrifying strength from the mung that was crusted into the floormats? I'll never know. But instead of jumping the van and joy-riding around town, we opted to cram the family into the Acura.

My youngest: Daddy! I'm so hot! We've got to get home before I burst into flames!

Me, aside to the husband: Drama, much?

Hubs: Oh noes. Are you approaching the ignition point?

My son: Tee Hee! poking at my oldest

My oldest: YOUR SON is approaching the ignition point...of MY WRATH.

End scene.

Posted by Jenny at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) ||

In a cruel twist of something, I've come down with a cold. Not an epic, bed-ridden cold - no no. It's one of those seeping nose, vaguely weakened-type things. My head is cloudy and my eyes are weepy.

I kept shooting awake last night, pillow damp not from my open mouth drooling, but from my running nose. That's just plain gross, and to remedy the situation, I wadded up some tissue and shoved it into both nostrils. Laying back down with both nostrils literally waving matching white flags of surrender, I got the giggles.

In the dark, I flopped from one side to the other, trying to find a comfortable position. My husband snorted next to me, and dropped back into a deep sleep.

Forcing myself to lie still, I finally drifted off to a sleep marred by weird dreams and a vicious case of cotton mouth.

This morning, I've already blown my nose enough time to make it sore and red. Better out than in, I always say. I have (as the historical romance novelists put it) a horror of phlegm. I hate it hate it hate it.

And with that, it's time for me to take a hot shower. And then take the kids to get hair cuts and for back to school shopping.

Posted by Jenny at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) ||

The kids are headed off to bed, and I've finished putting away the mess from dinner. Somewhere during the interminable wait for my husband to get home from a business dinner, I decided to write a blog post about back to school and my plans for school shopping this weekend and how my oldest daughter wrote a letter to her best friend including a drawing of what she plans on wearing for the first day and oh my goodness I am not ready for her to have fashion opinions and...

I did what any sensible mother would do and fixed a drink. And now? I'm a little tipsy. For those of you who met me at BlogHer - you already know that this involves lots of wooooo! and also lots of random hand gestures. My husband is bemused, but he's a lucky fellow. Really lucky.

I'm off to fold a load of laundry (wooooo!) and to kiss the kids one final time while they drift off to sleep.

Did I mention that the freaking tooth fairy forgot to come two nights ago when my son ripped a perfectly affixed tooth from his tender gums? She forgot, and the next night, came with not only a golden dollar coin but a pack of sugar-free gum, courtesy of the tooth-fairy's spouse, who was a little put out that La Tooth Fairy managed to forget to swing by.

She was tired, okay? I mean, JEEEEEEEZ. And in her defense, it was totally NOT anticipated. I mean, one minute the kid had a tooth, the next minute he had a bloody gap in his smile.

Apparently, the work dinner my hubs went to involved sushi, sake bombs and a live DJ playing some Prince that may or may not have been appropriate for a dinner crowd. His co-workers pointed this fact out, and he proudly informed them that I tend to retain lots of nasty lyrics to songs. I'm sure I scored major points with that little admission.

And now, I'm veering into territory best left unwritten - hah!

Posted by Jenny at 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) ||