Ready or Not??

Tomorrow is August 4th, which means there is exactly one month until school starts in our district. I have been raving about how excited I am for school to begin but as I thought about it, I realized that I am not prepared AT ALL.  First, I had high hopes this summer to keep Caleb's math and reading skills up to par with a math workbook provided by the school district, as well as a reading program through the library.  The math workbook has nine lessons that need to be completed and sent in (via snail mail) by the middle of August.  Ummm...yea...we have sent in three lessons so far.  That's not to say that Caleb hasn't done more (he's in the middle of lesson eight), however, I haven't been sending them in.  Likewise with the reading: the library chart says that the kids should read or be read to for TWENTY HOURS by the middle of August.  Have we even colored in one little section of minutes on the chart yet?  Nope!  Again, that's not to say that the kids haven't been reading (Chris has a nightly routine of reading to the two older ones) but I have not been on the ball with helping the kids record their time.  That said, here are some things that I am NOT looking forward to when school starts:

* Earlier wake-up times
* Earlier bedtimes (not so bad for the kids....not so fun for Mommy to go to bed earlier however)
* Homework
* Making creative lunches (practically every day)
* Bath schedules (which are harder because of the earlier bedtimes)
* Nightly reading schedules
* Keeping track of papers
* Keeping track of everything else
* Hurrying Caleb out the door
* Disrupting Connor's nap schedule to pick up the older kids

and finally....

* My alarm clock (I really hate that noise)

There are things I am looking forward to, of course.  You want me to list those because this post is too negative?  Well, fine, have it your way.

Things I'm looking forward to:

* Spending some one-on-one time with Connor
* Hopefully getting to the gym more (since Hannah's preschool is ATTACHED to it)
* Having children who are not bored (like they seem to so easy get in the summer time!)
* School clothes/shoes/supply shopping (we're halfway done!)
* Earlier bedtimes for the kids (remember, it was me going to bed early that I don't like so much)

Well, that's just a few things but you get the idea.  There are definitely pros and cons to the school year, as there are to summer break, and I keep going back and forth on which I prefer.  I guess they are just like the seasons: winter seems great until you're sick of snow (sometime in April...just kidding) and summer is great until you're sick of the heat (yea, that's about now).  It will be interesting to see what the year brings so I guess that's something to look forward to.  :)