The September Schedule

Back to school! This is Henry on his first day of first grade, and Agatha in her fairy costume for a friend's fairy-themed birthday party. 

Everything started up in September: We are more highly scheduled than ever before. Now Henry's in school 8-3 every day, and Agatha's in from 8:30-3 four days a week; Thursdays I pick her up at 11:30 am. Michael's and my teaching started up as well, of course, with its own schedule of obligations, plus Michael is now chair of the department and I'm on the tenure and promotion committee. Henry started soccer (practice Monday evenings, games Saturday afternoons). Agatha started dance class (every Tuesday at 4). Even Sunday is not immune: the new year of Sunday school has started, with its own schedule and curriculum. Because I feared the million details of chairing the department would take over our lives, Michael and I crafted a precise and elaborate schedule of how many and which hours he would work, emphasizing that the home hours were to be focused on our family. Of course we also had to schedule in exercise, because when one person is exercising the other is caring for children-- and that is no small item to fit in, since Michael is training for a half-marathon. After a couple of weeks of feeling completely stunned by the pace of things, we are now getting habituated to it and all is going well-- except the house was not getting clean, so last weekend we made a schedule for that, too.

(Sigh.)

Although this truly sounds crazy, both Michael and I feel much calmer when we have slotted in time for everything to get done. It's when you don't know how things will get done that we get really stressed. But I think our tightly scheduled lives are the main reason we are contemplating-- planning, really-- for a long, unstructured sojourn in Ireland next summer. Three or even four weeks, nothing to do but take walks and bike rides, read, visit the pubs, and stoke the peat fire. Who's in?