Well, I actually have two posts today. I've been meaning to get this on the blog but was too busy the past couple of days. Since this is a bit more melancholy, I will do it first. The second one is regarding Amy's birthday.
After Hurricane Irene came through we lost power for about 5 full days. I kept thinking about how in the scheme of things we were very fortunate...no long term damage, no real suffering without AC or power, and so on. The main thing was that the loss of power was more of a disruption in our routine. It didn't make things impossible just more difficult. It was sort of unsettling to walk into a dark room with your flashlight in hand and reflexively reach for the light switch, only to have nothing happen when you flipped the switch. I can't tell you how many times I did that in 5 days.
Anyway, I realized that besides the power going out recently, we have had other disruptions. Only these disruptions are going to become our new normal. First, the most obvious change is that Sarah has moved to NYC to start college. Less obvious was that the boys started their new school year last week; Ben at Jamestown High School and Sam at Greenwood Christian Academy. It is the first year in 13 years that we haven't had someone to homeschool. And even though we KNEW that the boys were starting school last week, we were totally unprepared for the changes that makes in a family schedule.
Ben leaves for school at 6:45 AM. With football, he doesn't come home until 6pm on practice days and 10pm on game days. That makes for some 15 hour days when we don't see or talk to Ben. A major change for all of us. And for Sam, although his hours are much more reasonable, there is still the change in drop off and pick up times as well as homework when he gets home. We know that our decision to enroll the boys in school outside the home was a prayerfully made one but it still has been a disruption to our usual way of doing things.
Which brings me back to the flipping on and off of light switches when you don't have power. We have been so used to being able to see the kids, talk to them, laugh with them, fuss at them, cry with them (and because of them) whenever we wanted, that we have found it to be a total disruption NOT to be able to just talk to them at anytime throughout the day. Being without them as much at home has made me really appreciate how wonderful it was to be able to do that. We have truly been blessed to be able to home school our children to this point in our lives. But man, it is hard to have to readjust.
I think we had prepared (as best as we could) for Sarah not being around so much. But I think it surprised us last week how much different this school year is going to be. I hope we can adjust to the changes and do so quickly.
