I’d be lying if I told you that dropping my children off at school yesterday was a sad moment.

You know how it is when you get your favorite food, say your birthday cake. And Oh! It’s so good and such a special treat. And even though you’re trying to save some and savor it all week, you find that you’ve eaten three pieces that first day. And after that, you’re not so excited about your birthday cake. In fact, you’d rather not eat the rest of it. At all. In fact, you’d rather not look at it.

Well, we’ve eaten too much summer. And right now we’re just spooning it in because we feel obligated to clean our plates. We are all ready for something new. Tantrums have become standard practice. Fussing is typical. Clinging is expected. And it has become difficult for me to be positive. It doesn’t matter that we were busy trying to enjoy Summer’s end. We went to the aquarium to look at the fish. We finger painted pictures. We had movie time. We went to the pool. We were busy. But it didn’t seem to matter what we were up to because Summer was over for us. Just over.

But school is here now! And yesterday morning, I took back-to-school photos on our front porch while the kids showed off their new backpacks. We walked into school, and Julia hardly looked back from the door of her classroom. And even though Max did shed some tears in his teacher’s arms, he was fine less than a blink later, distracted by the same cars and trains he was drawn to on Meet the Teacher day. I stepped out of school and into the quiet of my car for the drive home.

It was pure golden.

And just like that Summer is over. But no one over here is complaining.