Life With Ladybug: Monday’s coming too soon

By Shannon, Ladybug’s mama

Driving home from my parent’s house this past weekend it hit me that summer is officially over. Yes, the sun will still be beating down relentlessly and the calendar will still say “August”, but for us moms who have kids in big school, it’s over. Kaput. On Monday, summer as we know it will dissolve into way too early mornings, barked orders to GET DRESSED NOW, PRIVATE! (um, I mean “sweet first-grader”) and sitting in the pick-up lane trying to decide whether we want to melt or conserve gas.

Of course, on Monday, I reminded myself that I had a whole week left. You know, to really focus on a little mommy-daughter time before that first school bell rang.

Then I started answering the telephone, answering e-mails, writing, cleaning house and running errands. I remember I stopped once and pretended to be a woman who was driving a backhoe out in the woods and accidentally tore up a fox’s den. Then I had to care for the orphaned fox baby, a.k.a. Ladybug, of course.

I do remember eating dinner and lunch together. And we talked. About chore charts and how we’d need to get back in the groove starting Monday. Fun stuff.

We did make it to the library and to the pediatrician for another urine test to see if it’s a UTI. Errands. And not all pleasant ones.

Then today we drove to the grocery store, because there was no peanut butter – or much of anything else — left in the house. We slogged through the store, picking out our necessities (and many non-essentials like those cute little jelly shoes that were on sale) and we did it fairly pleasantly. In fact, when we left the store with our full cart, I was actually smiling because our trip had gone so well. When we got into the car, my smile grew even wider when I heard the song Little Wonders playing on the radio. Ladybug and I grinned at each other, since it’s a song from a movie our little family really loved, Meet the Robinsons. We rolled down the windows and sang our hearts out to the sunshine. Singing the words made me feel light. And so happy to be driving down the road with my girl, having a little mommy-daughter time. Enjoying these small hours, together.

Some of the lyrics:

“Let it slide,
Let your troubles fall behind you
Let it shine
Until you feel it all around you
And I don’t mind
If it’s me you need to turn to
We’ll get by,
It’s the heart that really matters in the end
Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders,
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away,
But these small hours,
These small hours still remain.”