Autumn

Yesterday I was on the train, luxuriating in the fact that I had a brand new digital magazine to read.  I came across an article about Vermont and some amazing looking artisanal cheese and started daydreaming about how we’ve always wanted to do the old New England road trip in the fall, to take in the changing leaves.  Inn hopping and quiet drives down country lanes and pulling over on a whim to try the local marmalade or poke around that promising antique barn.

And then I was struck by this insane sense of pressure in my chest.  Followed by a wave of anxiety and mental calculations.  Does Jakey go to school next year?  In the fall?  Am I about to get on that “school-aged kids” train where vacations are dictated by a calendar that drives us straight into unbearably hot weather, unending crowds, and inflated prices?  Have I somehow missed the one autumnal season in my entire foreseeable future when we won’t have that gorilla on our back I formally refer to as Homework?

I feel this may be a major error in my familial job performance… my bonus is clearly in jeopardy.  Wait, what’s my bonus again?  Oh yeah— healthy, resilient, well-balanced children.  And a Cartier watch?  One can dream…

Speaking of dreams, we just returned from a wonderful trip to Portland which I intend to write more about later.  In a nutshell, the boys seem to have just summited that place where they can be strapped into a flying tin tall boy and hypnotized by moving pictures so as to make the idea of going on a more distant vacation relatively plausible.

My mental calculations unfortunately resulted in the realization that my autumnal fantasy should have been planned so as to fall… this fall.  As in next month.

Serendipitously, Jacob proclaims to me last night, “Mom, I’m going to go to kindergarten!”  We’ve talked a bit about this, but not a lot.  He’s just moved up to the classroom where many of the kids are transitioning off to big kid school this month.

Later in the evening, as he’s trying to eek out every last moment before bedtime, he begins an ambitious “house building” project with chairs and super capes and a butterfly net gate.  As I remind him that it’s book reading time in two minutes, he says, exasperated, “Ah Mom, you’re so oooold.”

Right back atcha punk.  Too bad you’ll be doing homework in the confines of a B&B while I’m enjoying scones and fall foliage.