Why can't it be summer forever?

I have to work today. 

It's amazing, though, how not stressed I am about it.  I remember when I started this job TEN YEARS AGO, Welcome Week was THE major stressor in my life.  I think I am in that sweet spot where the kids are big enough to make most things easier.  But it's not THAT sweet.  There's still childcare, etc.

Also, everyone has been fighting like WILD DOGS since we got home from Hilton Head, so it will be a nice reprieve for a few days.  Also also, the academic calendar has changed, and I am meeting two days this week and 2 days next week instead of the whole week in a row, giving me three days before Labor Day weekend to make sure all the kids' stuff is ready.  Then we all start classes the week of 9/3.  TOTALLY DOABLE.

The pool closes on 9/2, and any time between now and then that I am not doing precisely this is a WASTE OF TIME.

 Cooper, Dorothy, Jack, and I went to the Children's Museum, and we RAN INTO COOPER'S SECOND GRADE TEACHER just hours after the class list emails went out.  OMG!  He was thrilled, obvs.

 The museum was a zoo, but these 3 had fun anyway.

I should turn Dorothy's bedroom windows into this exhibit.

OMG I loved his clay face

adorable!

So happy!

Cooper for sure needs one of these

Tiny Frank Lloyd Wright

She was very serious about her dirty cloth pies

Garden!  On the roof!

Always with that pose.

I bought a pack of those wubble balloon things, and they kids were entertained for like 45 minutes.   And then they all popped.

  Bliss.

 Harry and Jack got to go to school and get their lockers and schedules.,  Remember how hard those stupid Master locks are to master for the first time?  The hall was full of 6th graders having quiet freak outs while their parents lingered.  But!  He figured it out and deposited all of his things in his locker.

 Bros!

 With their helpers.

 After school, we headed straight to Costco to buy snacks for the little kids' classrooms.

 And then the kids asked if they could go to the zoo, and I was like um, why the heck not?  because we haven't been there in MONTHS. 

In zoo news, Harry is almost a gibbon.

For the first time ever, Dorothy is brave enough to ride an animal, not just the zoo bench.  But she still won't go on an up and down animal.  Baby steps.

How can summer be almost gone? I feel like we are just getting started.