Jen's Column / I'm a Sap

By the time you read this, my sons will have headed off to their first days of school with equal amounts trepidation and excitement. Or at least that's how I project it will go. I'm writing this on Saturday, which means we still have a couple days until The Big Day.

They've already lined up their backpacks — filled with notebooks and fresh boxes of crayons and sharpened pencils. They've broken in their new tennis shoes. They've negotiated lunch boxes ("Why can't I get the one with the skulls?") and marker sets ("Pleeease can we buy the scented ones?").

They're ready. I'm not.

Don't get me wrong. There were days this summer when I would've liked to send them away on a school bus — or any bus, really. There were loud fights and house-length messes and, of course, a few cases of the "I'm boreds."

Regardless. What I'd like more than anything right now is another couple weeks with my kids. Actually, I'd kind of like to steal them away for a couple months.

This is a monumental year for our family: My youngest son is starting first grade. For the first time in nine years, I will be alone — as in "without kids" — for seven hours a day.

Do you have any idea how long I've waited for this day? I mean, really: Do you realize how many times I've dreamed, desperately, for days to myself?

And now I'm getting them. Seas of them. Weeks and months where I'll wave to my boys behind bus windows — giving our special "love ya" wink because it's no longer cool to blow kisses.

Whole days where I can have my teeth cleaned at the dentist without someone sitting on my lap. Afternoons when I can meet a friend for lunch without having to pawn my boys off on a neighbor. Mornings when I can work without someone scooting onto my lap.

So tell me why, as I type this, I'm crying. And not the pretty kind of crying — but the kind where tears and snot are actually intermingling on my keyboard. (I really shouldn't be left alone to write about my kids after watching them sleep.)

Everyone warned me. "It goes so fast," they said. "You'll blink and they'll be in school," they said. "They start kindergarten and then they're graduating and you can't imagine where the time went," they said.

I think about how my youngest son had colic — and how I spent months wishing him older. How I circled the living room for hours every night while he cried. How I couldn't get anything done because I had to hold him through entire naps. "This is never, never going to end," I told myself.

The days were so long. But as long as they were — the years have been infinitely shorter. My colicky baby is six years old. His big brother — the toddler who played patiently at my feet while his little brother wailed — is now nine. And I'd give just about anything to go back to one of those horrible days.

So this is my goal for the school year: Slow down. Watch. Listen. Love fiercely. Treasure the time we have together. Learn to share my sons with their teachers and friends — and hope these others see the same sweetness and earnestness and silliness in them as I do.

All right, my friends. I need to go grab a handful of tissues and compose myself. But I have to say, after our little talk, I feel much better. Thanks for listening.