The End of Summer

Today is the last day before school starts - I am not ready at all for summer to be over. Just saying "I love summer" doesn't seem to do it justice....I had to think about why I dread going back to school so much. I figured it out, and now you'll get to find out the deets about my summer lovin as well. First, it's obvious but still has to be mentioned - summer means going outside in flip flops and no coats. Just opening the door and walking outside is such a treat for us Northerners...so great. I miss that the rest of the year. During the school year, we all have to get up so early - so that has an obvious yuck factor right there. But it goes deeper. Early mornings require an early bedtime. Early bedtimes require an early dinner time. Early dinner times mean thar I have to be organized to have dinner ready, and often I have to stagger eating times to meet everyone's activity or work schedules. As if it isn't hard enough to come up with dinner ideas to feed a family everyday, that try to be healthy, and filling, and not crazy expensive, but to come up with something that tastes good at 3 different times? Please!!! In the summer, we can all eat whenever James comes home from work, or we come home from doing things, and if that means 8pm - so what? No one has to be in bed early, and even if it's 10pm before we finish eating and doing kid things it doesn't matter because I can easily still have like 3 hours of alone time - because, in the summer, I never go to bed!!!! But now, mornings start so early, I fall asleep by 10pm, so there goes my fun, relaxed evenings. It's that darn bedtime schedule, for me and the little kids, that makes the start of school so sad...