Summer is ending.  The school supplies have been out in WalMart for weeks.  I love summer and wish it could last forever.  It's not that I don't want to start school (I teach, ya know!).  It's that when a new school year begins, it means I am that much closer to working myself out of a job.  My kids are one step closer to the completion of their time at home.  And I'm pretty much wailing, just thinking about it.

Call me strange but I've never been one of those Moms who couldn't wait to get away from her kids.  I think I caught that trait from my own Mom.  She loved being with my brother and me and we knew it.  She still does.  And, if she could right now, I think she'd still come get me out of school when it snowed so I could play with her!!  Or let me stay home so we could work on Valentine Cards together.  Or sit up late so she could hear all the (boring) details of my evening.

I am sure there will be plenty to do once all my kids are gone.  I've never been one to be bored.  But if I could just hit the pause button for a bit, I'd do it.  I already know what it's like to set less places at the table.  To start to fix cheese grits casserole and remember that the one who loves that best won't be at breakfast that day.  To be able to finish laundry in 1/3 less time. To spend less at the grocery store. (OK, that part's not so bad!) To have fewer soccer practices and piano recitals and AWANA lessons.  I know that when I lie down in the hall outside the bedrooms late at night to pray, some of the beds are empty now.  And the only way they come home now is with a suitcase.

OK I'm in full blown sob mode now.  Can hardly see to type.  All because of what it means when summer ends.