All Alone

I did it.  I took my kids off to school at 10:30 this morning (instead of the 1:15 we've done for the last year and a half) and left them there.  I almost cried on the way in, but I managed to pull it together.  I almost cried again a little while later at Lowes when someone I knew asked me how I was doing, but I didn't.  And then I came home, looked around me, and thought--I have never done this before.

I've never been routinely alone in my home before.  Never.  Cindy Lynn was born the week after I graduated from BYU.  When she went to public school for 2.5 years I had Jason and then Jason and Josh at home.  There was that one year that I had Friday mornings to myself because Jason carpooled the triplets to their art class, and there have certainly been days here and there, but to look at the next 18 weeks and think that I will be alone from 10:30-3:30 every day, well that is something new. 

A week or so after the big public school revelation I made a new post it note on my computer desk top.  It was to be a list of all of the things I wanted to do when I had more time, so that when "more time" started happening I would have things to look forward to.  It's gotten quite long and will certainly take me more than one semester to do all of the things on it.  And it will be a while before I can start anything big--starting next Tuesday I'm going to spend eight days taking care of Kate while Cindy Lynn and Mahon are in Maui.  I have a feeling that I'll be tired enough by the time that is over that I'll be ready for some time alone!

Ready for the first day of Language Arts and Social Studies,
showing how they each feel about it.