davidandmarta.blogspot.com: a full month

september is a busy time. my clinic gets busy busy busy after a long quiet summer, our family schedule explodes with new demands from school, after school programs, and all the exhaustion and emotion that back to school brings. this year, flooding brought a special new twist to all the complication, and david had to manage 2 separate whole-office moves, flooded servers, destroyed files....and they are still in temporary offices. all of this, in one month. jeepers, we are busy. but, you know, good busy. just "at the edge of what we can manage with smiles on our faces" kind of busy.

school started this year in two different schools: ramona in 3rd grade at the big-kid elementary marquette, and james at lapham in 1st grade. they ride the bus now, because the bike path is....flooded. yep. and crossing east washington is busy--ramona almost got hit by a car that first week. but it's an early school bus, and james missed it as recently as this morning. it's hard.

back to school means so many "special events" on weeknights, about 1 minute after the end of the work day:
welcome back conferences, to touch base with the teachers
welcome back to school night at lapham
welcome back to school night at marquette
ice cream social for families at marquette
garden work day and pizza for families at lapham
food cart dinner night as a kick off for the PTG (of which david is a board member)
unicycle kick off event

but also, there is the daily grind stuff:
ramona has nightly homework for the first time
daily piano practice (because piano lessons started again)
after school girls on the run practice
making lunches
david's weekly softball games
meetings, meetings, meetings for boards and volunteer work

this is a sad little laundry list made by a tired working parent one month into the school year. it reads like a shopping list of mundane items, but reading it reminds me that there are legitimate reasons that we are all so busy, so tired, and haven't taken time to touch base with family, friends, or even one another. it will get better this month, because it won't be new, and all the special event stuff should finally go away.

(and at least piano practice is no longer a fight, and is so cute)

there has also been all the awesome fun stuff, because september is one of the best of all the months, and is jam-packed with sunshine and weekend fun.

fun at the farmer's market, where james was pulled from the crowd (relatively reluctantly) to join a street magician's show....

fun like finding the evasive golden bucky while watching the amazing athletes compete at the annual ironman race in madison...

and then having a huge friend crowd at dinner while cheering on those ironman racers.

fun is being had at olbrich gardens' annual evening light and art installation gleam

and at the willy street parade, catching candy like a boss with friends.

and remember all those "welcome back to school" special events i listed? well, those are pretty magical too. i mean, james was so excited to share his classroom, his work, and his self portrait with us. he's so magical.

so is this one.

but wait! there's been even more activity! we danced around with the marching band at union south before a home football game, gave bucky some high fives, and nearly passed out from heat exhaustion.

when it was a little cooler we picked some apples, bought some gourds and flowers, and had our first taste of chilly autumn.

somewhere in there, david and i managed to celebrate our anniversary by sqeeeeeeezing me into my wedding dress and posing for some photos (photo credit: ramona) before bedtime. 13 years, man, and we are ragged with parenting exhaustion. cheers, partner.