I'm ready for school to start...

...but probably not for the reason you're thinking a mom of 6 is ready for her kids to go back to school.

I love having my kids home with me. I love the lazy days, the ability to go to the park at noon if we want to, the camping with them, the late night chats, beach days together, and the loud crazy-ness of a day with 6 kids. And, okay, I'll admit it...it's also nice to always have someone to take the garbage out at 9:00 am if I don't feel like it! Don't get me wrong...there have, for sure, been some days that I'd love to ship them off to military school for the rest of their dog gone life. But, overall, I love the kids being home in the summer.

The reason I'm ready for the kids to go back to school is....honestly I miss my friends!! All my mommy friends that I'm used to seeing every day! I miss weekly coffee at some one's house, I miss the daily morning chats we all have in the hallways. I miss convincing one of them to come shopping with me for the day. I miss all of it. Yea, I have friends outside of the "mommy network" at school, and yea, we do hang out. In fact, us mommies have hung out together this summer.  But it's just not the same as seeing them every morning for a little chat. And we haven't been able to ALL get together. Oh we have good intentions, and we talk all summer, but it's just to dang hard to get us all in one spot over the summer.

So I'm ready. I'm ready for my mommy friends to remind me I'm normal...even though I show up to drop kids off in Jammie pants, mascara running down my face, hair in some sort of weird ponytail I put up the night before bed, and a sour look on my face from the salt I inadvertently used in my coffee that morning but am still drinking it because, seriously, it's 7:45am. They know. They know I'm normal. And they know to just smile, put their arm around my shoulder, guide me to their soccer mom van, and drive me to the nearest Biggby. Cream & sugar, please. Hold the salt.