It’s fall. You’ve probably noticed…not that the weather feels particularly fallish, and not that the leaves are changing, etc., but once the kids go back to school it’s fall, and the last of my kids goes back to school Wednesday.

And I am once again realizing that as they go back, I go back too. Not back to work–I’ve been working all summer, in a failing effort to do every bit as much as I did during the school year with 12 hours less a week to do it in and a whole lot more days off and interruptions. But back to..everything. I like school, I like schedules, I like having an even tenor to our days–but watching it all descend upon us like dominoes is still painful. First, piano lessons returned after a small break, then school. Next, hockey rears its ugly head, and skiing, believe it or not, will be upon us in a matter of heartbeats; not in the slopes and snow sense but in the volunteering, registration and gearing up sense, and because helping to run the community ski programs here will be, this year, my one and only volunteer contribution to our small town, that’s going to represent a significant one-two punch for fall.

And today, as I was punching the dates for fall warm-up hockey (and noting the oxymoron) into the calendar and cursing each and every one, I kicked myself. I love that Sam plays hockey. I love that we have community ski programs to be run. I love that we’re even more active once the snow flies than we are before; I love to ski, I love to watch the kids ski. We do this stuff because they love it, yes, but some of why they love it, at this stage, is that we have chosen it and presented it to them for them to love. It’s not a burden, even when it happens at dinnertime on the same day of the week as piano (Sam and Lily’s only other after-school activity) on a night when there is bound to be homework. It’s not a burden, of course, unless I look at it that way.

It’s fun, damn it.