Good Luck, Math Teacher.

It's the day after Labor Day, and they say that summer is fading into fall... although not anytime soon, if these guys have anything to say about it.

Upon realizing that there were no life guards in their stands this evening, Ford looked up at me, confirmed their absence, and said with a conspiratorial look, "that means we can do all the bad stuff... like throw sand!"

We started home school today.

Mine and Seth's nostalgic sniffles about our baby starting kindergartem were drowned out entirely by the realization that we had to teach it.

Which wouldn't be so bad, if there weren't also an expectation that I telework and be fully available.

I've already lost one work laptop, likely to pancake batter, and whoever authored the idea that parents of young kids should be "allowed to telework" so they could also be fulltime teachers should be tarred and feathered.

Lots and lots of "f*cks" were uttered before we abandoned the letter "A" and fled for the lake. We talked about how lakes were formed, and I called this PE time and a win. It's going to be a long year. To be fair, we're also still recovering from a long Labor Day weekend which accidentally consisted of a lot of house guests. Including four additional kids.

Especially in these nutty and isolationest times, friends are gold; so we capitulated to a lot of chicken nuggets and laundry so ours could feel semi-normal. Not our usual Labor Day jam, but we were grateful for the lake. And Oxyclean. Especially Oxyclean. And friends-who-are-family.

Other than long weekends and the sudden absence of lifeguards, we've kept ourselves entertained with a new quest (since we ran out of best swimming holes, we've moved onto waterfall hikes)

(otherwise entitled, visiting my Mom's favorite spots);

swim school;

Davy Crockett-ing;

socially responsible "date nights,"

and terrorizing grocery stores when we forget something on instacart.

Wish us luck as we transition to some semblance of order. This crew is not going to take to structure very well, and we're OK with that.

It means they've had a good summer. But heaven help their math teacher...