Back to School! (or - the return of the guilt free nap).

Listen.

Do you hear that?

You don't?

Me either!!

My house is quiet! Free of showtunes and Taylor Swift and One Direction and sister-bickering and the poke-me-in-the-eardrums-with-chopsticks-now-please insanely obnoxious voices of every singing star that now has their own Disney Channel or Nickelodeon show!

Pour mama a mimosa and ready the napping couch!

Nah, not really (yet).

I'm actually smack in the middle of the first-day-of-school-empty-nest-blues.  It happens every year. The Things and I spend much of the summer literally in each other's faces and spaces, and many, many days together preparing for school with shopping, planning, meeting teachers, debating schedules and worrying about everything from which folder should be designated for which class to how they'll ever get up at 6:30 a.m. after sleeping until 10:00 all summer to the certain catastrophic effects of withdrawl from 3 solid months of stalking One Direction via just about every possible social media outlet that is legal (and I don't want to know about the ones that are not).

So when the first day of school pancakes are eaten,

I made Thing 1 eat pancakes for this photo op (she's not a breakfast person) and made Thing 2 3 '6's' before one turned out. Then we realized she'd eaten '666' and thought that might not be the best way to start a new year.

and the forced  first day of school photos have been taken,

and the usual morning whirlwind that is intensified by the nervousness and drama of the first day is over and the Things are suddenly - in the blink of an eye - gone and it is deathly quiet, I always feel so alone.

Vacant.

Left behind.

It's like everyone in the family is all dressed up and off to their shiny, new, exciting day and I'm left behind in my bathrobe with hungry cats, a sink full of dirty dishes and the echoes of all the summer activity ringing through the empty house.

I get blue.

And I know I am very fortunate to get to still be in my bathrobe at 7:30 a.m. and that I have always been able to stay at home (by choice...albeit an occasional thought that it is an insane one) to make the 1st day of school cupcakes - that goes without saying.

But it doesn't matter if the Things are off to the first day of 11th and 6th grades or the first day of 1st grade, the sudden feeling of separation is always the same.  It's as if there's a little part of me that gets carried out the door in that heavy backpack and for a few hours it's kind of hard to breathe without it.

And they're not getting any younger (notice I did not say that I was not getting any younger.  It's because I am miraculously staying the same age.....year after year after year).  Time is flying by and before I know it Thing 1 will be off to college and that vacant feeling is gonna last a whole hell of a lot longer than an hour.  Time to snap out of it.

Nah, I'll let myself wallow in emptiness today.....for approximately 18 minutes.
Then...I've made a schedule!

The 1st day of school me schedule:
7:45-8:30 - miss the Things.  Resist getting out old photo albums and looking at their first days of kindergarten.  Kick myself for not listening.  Feel my heart break just a little.

8:30 - 9:30 - Write this blog post. Check facebook and see all the other photos the proud mamas are posting.  Already.  Quickly post mine because I'm nothing if not a follower.

9:30 - 11:00 - Pour another cup of coffee with extra sugar.  Turn on LIVE with Kelly! in the kitchen.  Make the 1st day of school cupcakes (and lick the bowl because no one is watching).

11:00 - 12:00 - Work out while catching up on Bachelor Pad (or get dressed in my workout clothes and sit on the couch watching Bachelor Pad...do a few squats and call it good).

12:00 - 1:00 - Take a hot bath with new People magazine.  Now would be a good time for that mimosa.

1:00 - 2:00 - nap with my favorite napping buddy on our favorite napping couch without being woken up by someone yelling, "MOM???" and someone else yelling, "SHHH!!!! She's taking a NAP!"

2:00 - 3:00 - surf the web?...crochet?....read a book? (I can't think of quiet things to do, it's been so long).

And then - bam! - it's over.

And I'll have to pick up Thing 1 from rehearsal and take her to Target to finally get her school supplies (damn High School teachers who don't tell you what you need until the first day and when all the good stuff is picked over or gone)...and race home to meet Thing 2 at the bus and (as she has already warned me) listen to "about 45 minutes of everything that happened on my first day of middle school"....and eat cupcakes....and fill out forms....and make a special 'first day of school dinner'....and pester them to do homework and get into bed at a reasonable hour....and be once again filled with all the noise and commotion and activity that makes me whole.  

And look at that - it's 9:04 a.m. - I'm right on schedule.