Where Did it Go??

 

What happened to summer? How can it be Labor Day already?  The “official” end of summer.  I don’t even felt like there was a summer this year.  We were lucky to have avoided the heat and humidity that New Jersey is famous for.  That was actually a blessing!  Yesterday and today have been most humid days of the summer but because of that, it really felt like summer never arrived.

Since I work for most of the summer, I don’t get the “summers off” like many people believe teachers get every year.  Working through the first week of August and then having this procedure that has kept me off my foot, (well it was supposed to keep me off my foot,) took up the whole summer!  This kept me from the pool.  It has been three weeks since I went there.  That may also be a part of why summer didn’t seem “real” this year.  We used to call our pool the bargain of the summer because we were there nearly everyday.  Now, I have to drag my kids to come along!

This happens to me every year.  I think I am going to get soooooo much done, but don’t.  Yet, now, as I sit back and recap the summer, we may not have traveled much, but we did do quite a bit.  College tours, summer baseball for Drew, concerts in the park, get together with friends and lots of photography work filled our days.  It was our first summer without The Newark Bears around. Unfortunately that organization folded during the year.  Drew had been a batboy for them for several years.  Many, many of our summer nights were spent at the ball park.  I missed that more than I realized.  We did take in a few minor leagues games at other fields though.  That was fun.  It is always something the boys love to do.

One thing we didn’t get the time to do was visit the Poconos or go down the shore.  Hopefully, September will stay warm enough for us to maybe get a day on the beach before it gets too cold.  We live so close and never took advantage of it this year.

The sleeping in and going to bed late has been nice though.  My boys are going to have the toughest time readjusting to that.  There are always conflicting feelings at this time of year.   Not feeling ready to go back to work, but excited at the same time because I get to start a new school year with a fresh bunch of children. Even Drew said that today at breakfast.  He told me how “weird” it felt to be excited and disappointed at the same time.   He wants to go back to school and meet his new teachers and see his friends, but isn’t quite ready for the school work and rigor to begin. 

So, since we can’t stop time… bring on the new school year!!

“America’s Game”

It is the last week of summer vacation, at least for me.  The kids don’t go back to school until September 9th.  I return next Tuesday.  I will be in and out of school this week trying to get my classroom ready for a new batch of Kindergarteners.  I look forward to this time of year every year, although I find the first two months of Kindergarten the hardest two months of the entire year.  I am never as exhausted as I am in September!

Our last week of Summer will be filled with a lot of baseball.  Drew will be performing his bat boy duties for the last few games of The Newark Bears Season.  There is a game every day or night this week!  He cannot get to all of these games though because he has his own practices to attend for Fall Ball.  We put out an “all-call” on Facebook to all of our friends and family to join us for a game if they are around.  Tonight, my sister and her family are going and my dad will join us as well.    I know that Drew self-esteem is boosted when others show up to see him hard at work!

He has such dreams of seeing himself out on the field as a player some day.  We have been watching The Little League World Series all week.  Drew is astonished at what some of these boys are capable of doing.  His mood swings from awe, disbelief and wonder, to him being completely down on himself because he feels inadequate and not good enough.  But despite how he feels about himself as he watches, he critiques, evaluates and gives his own commentaries throughout each game.  He is glued to the television and does his own “research” on line to see what he can find out about the players, teams and their equipment.  Now, if only I get him to be so enthusiastic about school…