Tag: birthdays

The busiest time of the year

My six year old
My six year old

Autumn is my favorite season. The crispness and crackle in the air makes life feel more vibrant and immediate. I love the start of school and the apples and colors on the trees. Autumn is a time of itchy feet and revealed horizons and sparkling skies.

It is also, without a doubt, my busiest time of year. And I have a hunch that this will only get worse as time goes on. The busy season really starts with my birthday on September 23rd, which almost always coincides with Must Watch Baseball. Then in the first week of October, my eldest has his birthday. I get a week’s reprieve in which to go apple picking and make apple butter before my husband’s natal day arrives, followed a week later by my youngest son’s. And two out of seven years, the child’s birthday does not fall on a weekend. This means that I really have to do things on two days that week, because how lame is it to have your birthday and no cake? Almost as lame as having your birthday party and no cake, that’s how lame. So…. two cakes.

Three days after Mr. Thane’s birthday is Halloween, aka my worst holiday. (I am totally a “Let’s go to a store and buy you a costume” kind of Halloweener.) Of course, if the Sox are in the playoffs, my evening schedule also involves finding ways to sneak in the game because (as Sox fans are so keenly aware this year) we don’t make the playoffs every year. (This year the complicating role of baseball has been played instead by knee surgery and twice-weekly physical therapy.) Less than two weeks after Halloween, I host a Thanksgiving type meal for around 30 people – all sitting down to eat simultaneously.

Immediately after Mocksgiving (or preferably prior), it’s time to start with the Christmas cards. I usually do about 80. I almost always write a personal note. It is meaningful and important to me and takes nearly two months.

Did I mention I have a full time (plus) job, and two small children and a house to keep and (now) cookies to bake for the PTO bake sale at the Halloween xtravaganza that happens a week before Halloween, thereby narrowing my window for successful creation of costumes? Also, are any of you dying to buy raffle tickets to the cash raffle at said Halloween party?

Also, the inexorable exhortations of my soul require autumnal reading of ghost stories and preferably a good spooky game of Cthulu.

So if I’m running around like a one-legged mother of a six year old (HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!) on a hamster wheel until New Year’s…. well, you know why.

Why the summers seem so short

This year I think I’ve figured out why summers seem half as short as any other season. The simple fact is: they are shorter.

Consider. Summer officially starts June 20th or thereabouts. June 20th is reasonable for summer starting. By the end of June, we’re pretty reliably above freezing and most of the snow has melted. Then you have July, which is really summer. (Except this year, when it was May Take II.) For me, the first week of August we have our big vacation of the year where I go home and hike Mt. Rainier and relax while my kids are entertained by my parents. I come back August 10thish a bit more tan and a bit more relaxed. But as soon as the tires of my Jetblue redeye touch down at Logan, I’m into planning for fall.

It’s not summer that’s weird. It’s fall that’s weird. No other season requires so much advance planning. I don’t plan for summer. I don’t plan for spring. I plan for Christmas, but not for winter. But well in advance of the calendar start of fall (September 20th or thereabouts), I’m planning.

Part of this is due to my own unique circumstances. Let’s look at my autumnal schedule, shall we?

*September 23rd – my birthday (generally ignored)
*October 6th – Grey’s birthday (big deal)
October 12th – my FIL’s birthday (we miss you Mike)
October 16th – my sister’s birthday (I sometimes scrape up a card)
*October 21st – my husband’s birthday (err… I usually buy something for him off his Amazon wishlist)
*October 28th – Thane’s birthday (what am I going to do for his first?)
October 29th – my niece’s birthday (make with the loot already!)
*November 14th (this year) – Mocksgiving (huge big hosting deal that requires lots of forethought)

Items with an asterisk require me to do party planning if a party is going to happen (which is a longer and longer shot with the grownup birthdays).

Add to that the typical things that need doing in fall — a new wardrobe for the kids, a new Saturday activity for Grey (we’ve settled on aikido), starting preschool, prepping the house for winter (cleaning gutters, furnace maintenance, mulching, etc.), Halloween, Thanksgiving and all that.

Finally, toss in a good measure of church starting back up. Now church doesn’t close down, but we have a more moderate schedule over the summer. Our committees meet less often. We don’t have quite as many events. There’s no Sunday School (we do have a kids’ event). There’s less extra work. But there’s a lot to be done for fall: the Fall lunch, the pumpkin party, lining up teachers to teach, ordering curriculum, the Sunday School launch party… all sorts of seasonal things. (Many of which I should probably start thinking about since the loss of a member has made us very shorthanded for some.)

Well, of course I had better start planning for fall by the middle of August! But what this means is that the amount of time I’m in summer and thinking of summer is about 6 weeks — from the end of June to the middle of August. Although there’s another 6 weeks of summer left on the calendar, my mind is already engaged with the fun season of autumn and has left summer behind.

Hmmm… I’m not actually sure I’m glad I wrote out all the things I need to do in Fall. Because right after I get those done we’re in Christmas. Ah well. As one of my professors used to always say (which, to be fair, drove me absolutely bonkers in college), “Life is rich and full.”