If you’re looking for a bit of levity in your Sunday night (or, more likely, your Monday morning), I really can’t recommend highly enough the girls at www.gofugyourself.com – they are downright knee-slapping hilarious. They are terrific writers, too. Definitely bookmarked for me, and visited daily.

It is only by following your deepest instinct that you can lead a rich life, and if you let your fear of consequence prevent you from following your deepest instinct, then your life will be safe, expedient, and thin. – Katharine Butler Hathaway

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therein to be content. – Helen Keller

Today a door swings shut. My babies are off to school and I am moving to a new phase. It seems like yesterday that I was feeling those first kicks in my ribs, panicking about sleepless nights with a colicky newborn, or worrying about nursery school. And there is a list of new concerns, of course, but those ones are gone now. I cried walking away from G’s school yesterday and today’s goodbye at W’s school had the same impact. I don’t want to go back to those days, but there is a distinct sense of loss as I say farewell to a life stage that was complicated, emotional, intense, and, in retrospect, incredibly short.

Pictures from the road that is turning now: Grace at 4.5, Whit at 2.5, July 2007; Grace at 2.25, Whit at 2 days, January 2005, at 39 weeks of pregnancy, 1 day before Whit’s arrival, January 2007.

This is what I’ve been reduced to. I now puree vegetables and hide them in Whit’s food. Sweet potato and carrot puree as a layer under the (wheat germ) breading on chicken nuggets, broccoli, pea, and spinach puree (above) hidden in meatballs, white bean puree in chocolate chip cookies. Come hell or high water, that son of mine is going to eat his vegetables.

This was taken at 7:45 this morning as both children were eating their breakfast. This was one of those mornings where I do think sometimes time just stretches itself for me as I am able to cram an immense amount into an hour. We got up at 7:15, got dressed, packed bags for school, kissed Daddy and sent him off to work, made breakfast for the children, steamed and pureed the spinach/pea/broccoli mixture, scheduled 3 COO interviews for the week after next. After I decanted the beautiful (really!) green puree into its various containers for use and freezing, Anastasia arrived and at 8:02 we headed to G’s school. 8:20 arrival at W’s school, 8 minutes on playground and an exceedingly uneventful drop-off. Whit’s dismissive “I love you, mummy, bye” made me both proud and sad. And then we drove to G’s school again to evaluate Anastasia’s non-parallel-parking options for pickup, went to Starbucks, the gas station, and the ATM. And got home at 8:50. What kind of universe do I live in where the time stretches itself to accomodate the mundane days but flies by at warp speed in the moments that I want to live in forever?

That’s Whit’s orange room pattern. I can’t believe it. My baby is going to school! And I can believe even less what a cliche I am being about this. Grace goes to “big kid school” tomorrow, and Monday Whit disappears into the doors of CES. Wow.