Summer's ending

Funny how that happens, no? Today is August 7th, and school doesn't start for another 20 days or so. We've got two and a half more weeks to fill with activities. But I guess that isn't really much time.

Now, all of a sudden, I feel the summer slipping away from me and I want to grab it as it goes.

The twins and I went to Target today to buy school supplies, per the list that we found on their new elementary school's website. I spent about $130 on all this stuff!

Most of it will be handed over to their teacher -- markers and pencils and paper and glue and Kleenex and wipes. But we also had to buy each boy a backpack, and since the lunchboxes were right next to the backpacks, we bought lunchboxes too. Baby A wanted a Hot Wheels backpack -- kind of cheap looking, but I couldn't convince him to consider anything else. Baby B spotted a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack and wouldn't consider anything else either. He also found a matching lunchbox, while Baby A chose a lunchbox with airplanes on it (not sure from what movie or TV show -- I don't recognize the characters).

There was a time, long long ago, when I thought my children would not own backpacks or lunchboxes with licensed characters on them, but I am pretty much past that now. I know from personal experience that having a stupid looking lunchbox in elementary school does not doom you to eternal bad taste. And Baby B looks so adorable in his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack, with his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lunchbox in his hand.

The rest of this week is full of activities: swimming, the zoo (it's Z week!), a night out for our anniversary, and a twins club picnic. And the next two weeks will be full too -- lots of things written on the calendar already. But the first day of school is looming. It's as though those two days (kindergarten has a staggered start, so we don't know whether their first day will be the 26th or the 27th) are pulsing, glowing. I probably should outline them in yellow or red, since that's how I'm experiencing them anyway.

Forty-eight years after the first time, I'm going to start kindergarten again. Mind-blowing.