Go Big. Then Go Home and Go Back to School.

My children will tell you that they're not ready for school to start tomorrow morning.  They don't know it, but they're lying when they say this.  They don't fully realize that their recent intensified emotions, which have been brimming over and spilling out, are a byproduct of the waiting game as we cross these final summer days off the calendar and wait for the inevitable to begin.

I tell them that, at some point, you just need to start, and then the tension dissolves.  The unknown about teachers, schedules, friends, and lunch tables becomes known, the hypotheticals become concrete, and the unfamiliar becomes routine.

And routine is good.  Routine is very good, in fact.

As I talk, they look at me as if I'm speaking Serbo Croation and sprouting a second head.  Because when you're a kid you want infinite summer, and this talk about routine and schedules and "falling into a pattern of normalcy" doesn't make sense.  Playing in the backyard with the neighbors until it gets dark each evening makes sense, and that's coming to an end.

So tonight, I sit outside and write this blog post as my daughters bounce on the neighbor's trampoline across the street.  Their voices carry across the street, and I listen to them merge with the sound of evening crickets.

When darkness falls, I'll call them home.

Tomorrow the routine begins, but not tonight.