End of School Daze

Just a few more days until school will be a thing of the past, at least for three months.  Finn will be a second grader, and Gus will be moving up to Jr Kindergarten at Finn's school, which he is very excited about.  I think he thinks that he will be in class with Finn, and I can't seem to make him understand what will actually be going down.  Anyway, even though I am excited about summer in some ways, I am also a little sad that this Spring is winding down.  It's been so full of changes and I've had so much time to just be with Ruby, getting to know her and watching her open up to me.  When the boys are around, she really only has eyes for them, so our dynamic will be a little different.  But good too, since my ultimate goal is to get them all raised up and out the door one day with a sense that they can always call their brother or sister at 4 am if they need to.  As long as they're not calling me.

So, the end of the school year is always full of school events, and today it seems they are all happening at once.  I have been going to a weekly playgroup for Ruby every Thursday, which has been really fun for her, and today is the last one for a while, so we will go to that at 9:30.  But then we'll leave early to drive about 30 minutes to Finn's end of school picnic, where we will stay for about an hour (even though the event lasts several hours, and Finn will probably be annoyed that I am leaving early, even though I am sure that my presence will go largely unnoticed while I am there).  Then Ruby and I will drive 30 minutes back into town to pick up Gus from school and take him to his end of the year picnic at a different park.  When that is over, we'll head over to pick Finn up from school and drive carpool home.  Once home, we will dust off and turn around to take Finn to a birthday party and then back home to get ready for a dinner with neighbors to say good-bye as they head off for the whole summer.  By this point, I will undoubtedly be annoyed with everyone, so any good-parent points I earned by attending all of these events for my children will be erased when I send them all to their rooms for driving me crazy.

And what will anyone even remember of this relatively ordinary, busy day?  Not too much, probably.  Will the boys appreciate all of my crazy driving and scheduling?  Definitely not.  If anything, they might later reflect that I was always rushing around in a bad mood.  But hopefully, when we all fall into bed tonight, we will be tired and will sleep well.  And hopefully the kids will have lots of tiny moments tucked into brain folds - many to fade away forever into the abyss of childhood, but maybe one or two to savor later on.  And I will too - maybe some I'd like to forget (since at 8 am I can already tell I'll be a crazy ogre at some point today), but some really good ones as well.  I'll let you know though - there's potential for total meltdown ...