Well shoot -- happy equinox!

I appear to have taken the summer off from blogging.  Go figure. Blogging's hard to get to with the family around all. the. time.  But now that we have settled into something of a regular schedule again (also, frankly, now that Facebook sort of sucks), I hope to be writing here a bit more.  We shall see.

So, what's been happening?  Summer happened, and I can hardly remember it already. The girls are back at school... 4th and 2nd grade are proceeding apace, and they both seem to be enjoying it.  Classmates are good, teachers are terrific, all is well. 

The Peanut did have a moment of shock and dismay this morning. She froze in the middle of clearing her breakfast dishes, and turned to me in sudden horror. "Mommy? Is childhood... is being a child just to get you to be a grownup? Because I don't want to be a grownup, ever!" Her wide blue eyes filled with tears, and she couldn't speak further. When she'd swallowed the lump in her throat she managed to get out that she never wants to have a job and have to get up in the morning and leave her home every day! So I tried to come up with a thousand cool jobs she could have. Peanut! You could have a job designing and building playgrounds! You could work at a toy company, testing toys with groups of kids! You could have a career designing dress-up costumes! You could be a singer, have concerts at night and get up late every day! You could have a job traveling to different places and writing about them! You could collect rocks and dinosaur bones! You could be an actress and pretend all the time! Jobs don't all suck. Lots of people love their jobs (humor her. Heck, humor me. I hope to love paid work someday myself. I'd say "again," but I never loved the kind I did. I really, really hope the Peanut has better luck.).

In the meantime, the Bean was rattling off a thousand reasons why she thinks being a grown-up is going to be the best thing ever.  You can drive! You can eat all the treats you want and nobody can tell you you can't! You can go wherever you want! You can read anything! You can decide everything for yourself!  And I had to agree... being a grown-up is pretty damn cool, and like her, I was eager for it even as a little girl. Maybe it's a first child thing.

One daughter can't wait for adulthood, eager for everything she'll gain; one cries at the thought of it, sad for everything she'll lose.

So, as the balance on this half of our ceaselessly spinning planet tips once again toward shorter days and longer nights, I wish for my children not to urge it on too fast, nor to mourn its progress too bitterly.  I wish it for myself as well, and for you. Be present in your present.

Happy, peaceful Autumn, everyone.