School starts this week for my husband.  He’s a teacher, so he goes back a week earlier than the kids.

It’s always a weird weekend.

He gets a little sad about not getting all of the things done that he wanted during the summer – and this year was especially unproductive considering he was at home with our two kids all day.  No camps, and after the last week of June, no sitter for the little one.  That meant long days of filling water bottles, retrieving and preparing “snacks,” finding lost marker tops and cleaning up paint spills.

I know he’s excited to get back to routine; to normalcy and his career.  He did some really cool projects with the kids but he’s ready.

My little baby girl starts preschool in a week.  We chose a really cool Montessori school and she is so excited.  We’ve got her lunchbox and matching water bottle (with “TWO OWLS MOMMY!!!”) ready.  She’s packed and unpacked it three or four times now.

We’re really excited about this school, but it’s a bit of a drive from the house – in a completely opposite direction as both of our workplaces.  So, our lives are about to get a little more hectic.  I’ll drop off in the morning; we’ll probably take turns picking up.

I also have to start packing lunches every day.  At her sitter’s, I could send a week’s worth of leftovers and know they’d be heated, prepared and served for my girl. If I was running late, the sitter would make her a sandwich or she’d share her cousin’s lunch.

Now, I’ve got to pack a healthy lunch each day. She’ll be in charge of opening her lunch and serving herself. I’ve been digging up creative ideas but my girl is not the most creative eater, so I foresee a lot of PB&J’s in our future.

I started by baking a batch of our favorite blueberry muffins this morning, with the intention of sending something home-baked every day.  We’ll see how that goes.  I want to be that type of mom who sends personal notes and little bits of love in my kid’s lunchbox every day.  So sweet.

I’m excited for my girl to start school.  Cognitively and emotionally, she’s totally ready.  But I’m totally crushed that it means she won’t be spending each day with her cousins.  Our kids have been so lucky to grow up together at the same sitter, spending every day together. Piper and her cousin, Edie have been raised much like sisters. They bicker and fight and love each other like sisters.

We’ve got a lot of changes in the next couple weeks; all exciting and normal but with the changes always comes that pang of nostalgia. I’m looking forward to these next chapters of parenting and of life.  Big things ahead.