Here is baby in her carseat on the airplane, about to land back home in San Diego.
The visit to Smithville was quite enjoyable, although the heat made for cabin fever. An editorial in the paper compared the situation, where one cannot go outdoors for more than a few minutes after the sun is up, and the evening cools down only slightly, to being snowed in. The comparison is quite apt. Keeping three small children entertained indoors without their own toys and away from all the Big People Stuff was very tiring. It was like some sort of parental boot camp.
I think I learned multiple new Mommy Skills on this trip, but so far I have not been able to form them from the murk of wrong-time-zone sleepiness. Maybe after a few days back here in the paradigm-schedule-shift of the new school year, the bones of the lessons will be revealed.
With this school year, the two oldest will be going to the same school, which is very nice, while the baby is still here at the house with me. I am very much looking forward to some increase in uninterrupted time. My resolution is to take full advantage of it while continuing to provide as much "homeschool style" interaction as possible with the children.
I'm happy the summer is over, and that feeling somewhat surprises me, since I did enjoy it. Being quite comfortable with ambiguity, I've been giving this sort of dichotomy a somewhat mistrustful look out of the corner of my mental eye.
