Where did August go?

There's nothing like waking up on September 1st to realize that your August to-do list is almost as long as it was a month ago.

Sure, Charlotte is in school, and we are slowly getting back into the school routine. Soccer practices have started, and today is her first piano/keyboarding class of the year. We've had homework most nights. And its my husband and I who have failed most often to sign off on her assignment sheet. Charlotte seems to do great with her work so far. I don't think she believed me that she might have an actual test of her spelling words for this week, but she could spell them all this morning, so she's prepared for the worst:)

Trystan isn't quite as lost in the shuffle as he seemed to be last year. He changed rooms at daycare this past month too, from the 2-year old room to the 3-year old room. That was supposed to signal that he was potty trained, but it's been hit and miss. He will have a perfectly accident free week followed by a week of daily bags-of-stinky-wet-clothes to bring home. Luckily, daycare is (mostly) forgiving since they know his medical history (though lately I suspect his potty issues are 80% stubborn-three-year-old-boy and at most 20% medical).

I did get him signed up for a gymnastics class, and he really, really enjoys it. He liked his "Little Bitty Dance" class this summer too, but the tumbling offers a bit more chance to burn off excess energy (running, jumping, and climbing are encouraged in this one...). I'm still feeling massive mom-guilt that he has had fewer opportunities for extra activites than Charlotte had by his age. I'm a second child myself, which compounds the guilt when I have to skip doing something extra for him in order to accommodate her.

Adding to my mom-guilt-and-to-do-list-anxiety is that Trystan is in desperate need of new clothes because (for once) I haven't taken the time to shop. And yet he continues to grow. And because the big discount stores don't seem to carry boys clothes in the 2T/3T/4T range (seriously, the two places nearest me have infant stuff and kid stuff, and toddler girl dresses, but toddler boys are expected to go naked?), and I haven't had the time to branch outside of my quick grocery/toiletry/school-supply runs to other types of stores.

The house is a mess, inside and out. Our garden is both overgrown and dying back at the same time. I had to compost half a dozen cucumbers the other day because they went fuzzy waiting for me to actually use the new batch of pickle jars I'd finally gotten around to purchasing (not that we don't already have half a dozen jars of pickles in the pantry already).

Tuesday night, our air conditioner went out. I'd been worrying about it all summer. Its ten years old, just like the house, and just hasn't had quite the same perk this summer. (I can totally sympathize) My husband thinks the problem is actually the fan, not the compressor, but we'll find out. Hopefully today.**  And I'm hoping that the house a/c doesn't talk to my car very often, because I've had the same suspicion about it this summer too. The car is only 7 years old, not 10, but we're approaching the point of imminent-death or immortality. In my experience, cars hit a certain point and either fall apart all at once, or they just keep puttering along until they're embarrassingly, laughably old. I've got my fingers crossed for the auto-immortality option, especially with the HVAC repairs that we didn't anticipate.

So, welcome September. Here's hoping that I finish my August list before Halloween, that I manage costumes sometime before Christmas, and that I'm not stuffing candy canes into the Easter Baskets.

**In the day between writing this and remembering to hit the "Publish" button, my husband arranged for the air conditioner to be fixed. The compressor was fine, but a capacitor for the fan was dead.  Its been replaced so the house fan now blows again (in a good way), and while he was  researching it, he found an idea for a slightly greener variable speed (I think) fan that we might install. Overall, it was a couple hundred dollars to repair, which is far better than the several-thousands that I was initially fearing. And that replacement fan motor, should we do that, is not terribly expensive and might qualify for a tax break.  I like that :)