There is so much push and pull, pro and con about everything.  

Wandering around my house last night, I thought how much easier it will be to keep the house free of kid schmagma now that two out of three will be at school everyday.  Not bad 😉

Yet, that was after the recovery from my heart-in-throat entry at the bus stop that afternoon.  Checking out at a store twenty minutes from our house took fifteen minutes (think chicken broth carton sliced by razor leaking all over pants to be purchased at bottom of cart – and that was before the coupon fiasco).  I got stuck behind another bus on the way to meeting my own children’s.  Luckily those little kindergarteners boarding the bus after their first day of school took awhile getting sussed up, which bought me four extra minutes.  Two of which I sorely needed.  I said hello to my already waiting neighbors by way of, “I hate this.  I liked when all three of them were with me all the time and I knew they were safe, I was responsible for them.”  

Which is really just another way of saying: “I can’t prioritize and hate when someone else is in control.”

Ah, but there’s the rub.

Part of me rejoices in the quiet calm that comes with sending them off to school.  Another part of me misses having that easy breezy schedule.  Part of me (specifically the migraine-sensing one) is glad to have the on-going scream and sumo matches done for the season.  Another part of me is bummed the other two aren’t around to play with their little sister.  I can save on grocery delivery fees now that I can go to the market without plucking my eyes out – as I would do bringing all three along.  I can’t keep up our weekly midday library dates.  

I realize why it’s always been so hard for me to make a decision even when I’ve filled out the pro/con t-chart my father first sketched for me so many years ago.  It’s almost always going to be a near-equal amount of items on each side.  The trick is how much each item weighs in its importance to you.  

Alas, I do not have the choice whether to send my kids to school or not (and, no, I will not homeschool for all you smart alecks thinking of suggesting it.  Their socialization with peers is much more valuable than the sailorspeak that would bring out in me).  I cannot weigh the pros and cons of a decision not mine to make.  I can only shift things around, add, subtract, and try for the ever elusive balance hovering somewhere around the center line of that t-chart in the sky.  

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