A lump formed in my right big toe on the day Sammy was born. Over the past five years it has slowly travelled up my leg, into my torso, and now it has reached my throat where it is starting to swell. He begins Kindergarten in less than 24 hours.

The kiddos head back to school tomorrow. It is a good thing and a bad thing. I welcome the return of the daily routine. I will miss the freedom.

Summer is over. I know the calendar and the Equator don’t kick summer to the curb until September 21, but I show it the door the night before school begins. We still wear shorts, we still eat popsicles, we still turn on the sprinklers. But our outlook changes. The air changes.

I will remember the summer of 2005 as a time of delirious joy and blinding pain. We moved into a new home, a dream come true. We lost a baby (or babies, depending on which hemisphere the ultrasound tech hails from).

High on the mountaintop, crawling through a valley…simultaneously, we breathed the air of both. And I bid this chapter farewell.

Goodbye, summer.

The kids were playing Police and Bad Guys this afternoon. There must be a crime-fighting and to a lesser extent (we hope) crime-commiting gene stashed deep in the brains of all little boys and some of their big sisters.

I was cleaning the windows inside and out to a glorious streak-free bird-foolin’ radiance.

As I buffed away the dog noses, Aidan squealed “eeeeekkkk, the robber!” while pointing at me. I said nothing. She reconsidered.

“Oh, never mind. That’s just the maid.”