August 8th
One of my best friends from high school and I are almost exactly a year apart - her birthday just two days after mine. And so each year on July 30th we celebrate Same Age Day - the one day a year when, numerically, we are the same age.
I'm not great at knowing when things are (from knowing birthdays off the top of my head, to the start date of a planned vacation) but the real problem is that I'm TERRIBLE at knowing what today is (so while I might know your birth date off the top of my head I'll probably still miss it not realizing that today is that date). So why then did yesterday, August 8th, feel like a date that was easy to hold onto all day, and a date that for some reason I should remember? have memory attached to?
Thanks to the modern wonder that is Google Photo "Rediscover this Day" I was shown that 5 years ago August 8th was our one day home with Liam before he went back into the NICU. Like a not fun version of Same Age Day - more like Cape Cod traffic changeover day? a hinge day between one NICU and the next?
After 55 days in the BIDMC NICU, we woke up as a family of four all under one roof. We spent the day with family stopping by, walking up and down the street with a baby who didn't seem quite comfortable and as the day progressed couldn't really settled, and then after Nathan went to bed I drove to the Winchester emergency room very concerned about his breathing. He was in the Winchester NICU for another week before finally coming home for good on August 15th.
And yet, now August 8th is just a date that I don't usually notice, although for some reason this year I did. What a gift to have let that chapter (for the most part) go.
Back to school fighting
Some families do back to school shopping - it appears we do back to school fighting.
For most of the summer we kept up a routine that would transition well back into the school year - the kids were up around 6:30, got themselves dressed, had breakfast, and got on with their day. But wouldn't you know, as the start of the school year approaches, and we try to squeeze more into our days, resulting in later bedtimes and overtired children, they are now easily sleeping until 7am and many attempts at a morning routine end in a fight. At least once school starts there will be no questions about why all these things have to be done in the morning because with school as the end point the answer will be obvious? I'm hoping so.
In the meantime, my goal is to keep squeezing as much out of the last days of summer as we can, striving for more patience in the morning, and getting everyone to bed closer to on time. We'll see how it goes...