Days 7

School started on Wednesday, as I already mentioned.  I put a lot of schooling on my plate this term, since the kids are gone, so I'm feeling a smidgen overwhelmed so far.  The classes I'm now entering are very different than the ones I've been doing.  First I started with the book work type of classes.  Then the project-based classes.  Now it's the practical application classes.  What doesn't help is that I've not done any of this before, so the anxiety levels can get kinda high.  Plus, someone is critiquing your work pretty much full time.  You self-critique, your peers critique you, your teachers critique you, and your mentors critique you.  Sounds fun, no?

Day 7

Not having kids around means the house needs less cleaning.  You'd think we'd have a tendency to clean a little each day, since it's WAY less than the cleaning we were doing every day before.  But you'd be wrong.  We tend to let it pile up over a few days.  Because we're lazy.

My mom called and asked a bunch of questions about my children and their typical behavior and we had an interesting discussion about them and why they do what they do.  (The answer is that I have no clue.)  I gave her my best advice and told her good luck.  It's weird to have our positions reversed like that.

Rob came home late last night which wasn't stressful in the least.  We have decided that if we normally didn't have kids around we would probably:
1 - Work longer hours.
2 - Need less sleep.
3 - Have more emotional energy.
4 - Cook better food.

I'm not saying that kids are an energy suck, but let's be honest shall we?  They totally are.  And this is coming from someone who likes her kids and likes being a mom.  Kids just use up a lot of physical and emotional energy.

But they also do things like hug you tight and color pictures for you.  So it's totally worth it.

(I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I DO think it's worth it.  It's just not worth it in a way that adds up, math-wise, in the short-term.  Also, studies show that people without kids report higher levels of happiness.  Which makes sense, cause those people have more emotional and physical energy, are less stressed, aren't boggled by their kid's latest insanity, have more money to spend, and get more sleep.  Duh.  But they also die without grandkids.  So there.)