Oh, Summer

It's finally here for the Hoffman family, as today was the Bean's last day of school (I don't take her on Thursdays due to therapy and Friday is apparently a teacher workday only)...in fact, her last day of preschool. We've been schlepping her to various classes since she was 18 months old, so that's what, four years? Shouldn't we be well into elementary school by now? Oy. Anyway, so it's upward and onward to kindergarten in the fall. Now, granted, I realize that special ed means she'll be in a much smaller classroom in all likelihood, and probably with a more diverse group of kids and grade levels, but it's still "real school", with all the attendant flotsam and jetsam. Uniforms (well, dress code, but it pretty much looks uniformy). Grades. PTA meetings. Field trips. The list goes on.

What boggles my mind is really how fast the time does sail by. I had driven past a local high school a few weeks as they were holding their graduation, and it dawned on me that my last batch of 8th graders were actually graduating high school. Way to make you feel old, eh? Also, I couldn't help but think "the next 12-17 years are just going to FLY by, and then I won't have kids in school...". My friend J suggested that we could then sit on the porch and drink appletinis, which frankly sounds like an excellent way to get through the next 12-17 years.