Independence

It's the first day of August, and I'm sad about it.  When I was a kid and the calendar page turned to August, I would bemoan the few precious days of freedom I had left.  So I was thinking about the upcoming school year and the differences it will bring.  Technically, DD will be old enough to walk home from the bus stop on his own.  I'm not ready for him (or BB) to do this yet, but it did get me thinking of how much difference a year makes.  At some point, they will be old enough to spend some time home alone.  They'll be old enough to ride their bikes in the neighborhood without us.  What will that be like?  It's hard to really understand what that would feel like.

I feel guilty enough now when I send them downstairs on a Saturday morning or let them play Minecraft while I work the afternoon away.  But the fact that they can allows me to finish work and get dinner started.  What a difference from having a toddler at your heels while one-arming a newborn over a gas stove!  Yes, pros and cons to everything.

Speaking of independence, since running their lemonade stand, they've been itching to sell more items, such as books they've authored and illustrated.  Sometimes they will bring out chairs and boxes to create a little stand at the end of our long driveway and wait for passersby.  It's nothing like the heavy foot traffic we used to have outside our row house in Dupont.  They can go an hour and never meet one potential customer, to which they say "we need to move to New York.  There's nobody here!"