Farewell

I have been getting into a file of old family photos that I scanned in several years ago while working on a project for my brothers birthday. They are just so beautiful to me. Beautiful and preciously nostalgic of course. 

This is a note to say farewell to the life we have been living since school started back. Swim season is upon us and tonight was the first evening practice. Tomorrow will be the first "morning" practice, if you call 5:30am morning. I call it dark. Dark and cold and, frankly, lonely. I have been spoiled these last 2 months. I wake up to Stephen getting the girls ready for school and fixing me breakfast every morning. I get to take a shower and come down and face the day prepared. That has been our rhythm. Now I have to figure out a new rhythm as twice a week I will wake up alone when the girls come in our room at 6am and try to figure out how to shower and dress and feed and pack backpacks and get to school on time solo. There was a time that I just got up when he left at 4:45 or whatever. Maybe that's what the future holds. Not sure yet. I do know that it means that I am up way past my bedtime right now. Boo. I like being up at night. It's just about the only free time a wife and mother gets. To see that limited to two hours (maybe three if I am feeling dangerous) makes me a little sad. But I digress. The afternoon practice today went well and since they start at 5:45pm he was able to come home and eat dinner with us before heading back out. The girls and I had a pleasant evening and he came home just in time to read Frankie one last story and help get the girls out of the bath tub. I will figure out a new normal. I have just been dreading this season a little for some reason. Not sure why. It always feels like the beginning of a marathon. Once those practices start they don't stop for four months and standing at the starting line that's a long ass way off in the distance. Sigh. My way out of my dreary heart is gratitude. So! Here I go! I am grateful that coaching gives Stephen a little more $$ each month. Super grateful that the school divides it out over the entire 12 months they he is paid. I am excited to plan something fun on the evening practice days that Daddy doesn't come home for dinner. I see dessert playdates in our future and lots of story time. I am excited to have such a regulated sleep schedule. Thankful in advance for the wonders it will do for my migraine management. Thankful for the inevitable organizational systems that I will create while figuring out how to get it all done in the mornings. Here's hoping that thankful thing lasts when all 3 girls wake up tomorrow missing their Daddy : /