Untitled.

As the school year has gotten underway this past week, I have been begrudgingly jerked from my leisurely summer cocoon and placed firmly back into my regular boring old school-year life in the carpool lane. Each night for the last week, I have had some sort of parent meeting or another.

Honestly, I have only attended about half of them, partly because I am a slacker and partly because I cannot stand to sit through meetings where the teacher/scout leader/coach just reads from a handout. (Hello? I can read this myself. At home. So just send it to my home and save us all a lot of grief, okay?) My attitude is not the best.

To add insult to injury, I have as usual put off all of my work certifications until the last minute, so this fall I will be spending many of my evenings in classes virtual and actual. The calendar on my kitchen wall has very little empty space left, and it just seems like it's all too much.

Amid all the flurry of activities and obligations, however, a new era has crept into my life, sadly and quietly. It is the last year that I will be a preschool mom. It is the last year that I will stay at home every day with a preschooler. Ever. Next fall, my Katie will strap on her backpack just as the other two did, and I will be left with the realization that nine years of preschool parenting will have come to an end. It has been horrible and wonderful, challenging and mind-numbing, neverending and quickly passing all at once. I don't know what I will do when this time is gone.

But until then, every day that passes is One Of The Last, and although there are plenty left at this point, experience tells me that they will be gone all too soon. As I drop the older two off in the mornings, I look in the rearview mirror and see that sweet little face smiling back at me, the entire day wide open before us.

It's a lot quieter with just one. There's a lot less fighting. There's no sharing. Errands are a lot more enjoyable. Going out to lunch is actually fun. Katie has always had to share the spotlight, and now she alone is the star, and she is soaking up every minute of it.

That's my goal, too, the soaking up of minutes, although it doesn't come naturally for me. My minutes tend to get eaten by laundry and errands. My goal for this year, though, is to just set those aside as often as possible and really try to just enjoy this fleeting Time.