September brings out the manager of children in me.  I realize, as I do every year while filling out forms and calendars, arranging transportation, and purging all of the stuff from last year, that they are my job, my passion, my center of focus.  This year, just as I hit my stride, they show distressing signs of growing up.

As we approach the dinner hour on this first day of school I survey the scene of everyone doing their own thing – one draws and watches streaming TV (Dexter, probably) in front of her computer, one belts out Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting on guitar hero and the third lobs a question from the next room “Mom, is mist like baby fog?”  These days, in which I am privy to what all of them are doing in a single moment, are going to get scarce.

Rice simmers, grill heats, and summer slips quietly out the screen door to the strains of Stevie Wonder’s Superstition.