Four Hours

Noni goes to preschool for the first time tomorrow. It's a big day for her. It's a big day for me too because, for the first time in almost nine years, I will have two kid-free mornings a week. (There was a brief period, almost four years ago, where Lucy attended school two mornings a week and Noni wasn't born yet, but she was in utero so it didn't somehow quite count as kid-free.) Part of me cannot stand the idea of Noni heading off to school. She is growing up too fast. (And I, having turned thirty-six yesterday, seem to be growing up too fast too.) But part of me is excited about all that I can do with that chunk of newfound free time.

In my four kid-free hours tomorrow, I plan to go for a two hour training run, shower, match all the socks in the laundry basket full of unmatched socks, clean out the girls' closet, scrub all three bathrooms, paint a picture using my new birthday easel, organize our storage (junk) room, see the bottom of the laundry hamper, make photo albums from three years of photos that exist only on flickr, call friends I haven't talked to in too long, write a short story for my writing group, grocery shop, mop and dust the house, finish the edits on my novel, spray paint the rusting outdoor furniture, and weed the yard.

I suppose my list may be a little ambitious. But if I knock the first three items off the list, it will be the most productive morning I've had in a long time.