Settling Back In

Our life has been kind of crazy for the last ten or so months.  Not too crazy, but more crazy than I would like.  It started with the Christmas season, ran through three months of medevac, had a small lull until R&R, and finished up with summer travel followed by the beginning of school.  I really haven't had more than a month or so to settle down before something started back up again.

I'm very much a schedule person, and so this has been low-level stress in the back of my mind - not enough to notice when it's going on, only enough to notice when, after almost a year, it has finally ended.  Kind of like that annoying sound of the computer fan an overheated room, or the split packs running all day every day.  Not enough to run out of the house screaming crazy-town, but enough that the comparative silence is blissful.

We have reached that comparative silence.  And I had almost forgotten what it was like.  This past week we had school.  Every morning around 8:30 I started by grading Sophia's math lesson, handed it to her for corrections, and then graded the rest of her school work.  Then we went over her corrections and we did our work together while Edwin did his math drills on the iPad (because technology is definitely something that should be used for drills).  I graded Kathleen's work, handed it to her for corrections, and then worked with Edwin on his school.  We finished that around 11 or 11:15 and I did Joseph's reading lesson to him, followed by lunch and naps for me, Eleanor, and William.

And we did it every single day.  Nobody came over.  I didn't go anywhere.  We just did the same things four days in a row and then on Friday I worked on other Mom tasks.  All of the children knew what they had to do and (mostly) did it.  By the time I woke up from my nap, everyone had done their school work and was ready to go outside and play.  Every morning the kitchen was clean.  Every evening the toy room was clean.  On laundry day all the clothes got washed and put away.  On bath day the children were washed.  Dinner was on the table around six.  It was cleaned up by seven, followed by stories and bed time.  All I needed was two little lines and we could have been something out of Madeline.

I know that eventually I'll get a little tired of the routine because that's the nature of being human.  Too much of a good thing becomes a little boring after awhile.  But the great thing is that I have a nice long stretch - almost seven months - to get nice and fully tired of such a wonderfully regular life and schedule.  I can revel in my life and children moving (mostly) seamlessly in the paths I've spent so much time, tears, and stress banging them into.  We can all enjoy the utter predictability of our lives and have the luxury of thinking that a little excitement would be nice without actually getting any of it.

And then it will all go up in smoke when we embark on our next move.  But until then, I'll enjoy it.