Children are getting bored (although they say they love summer vacation and hate school), parents are getting antsy. Summer is waning, the local tomatoes don't get any better than this, it is high pesto time, and we are approaching Labor Day fast. Schools have sent out supply lists, the children are relishing their last days of endless sleep, laziness and boredom, and we, the parents, are enjoying the last days of no-school-routine.

During the summer months bedtime was undefined and breakfast on your own, beds remained unmade, dinner was late, my yoga routine went bye-bye, and work came and went in spurts for me, unorganized and interrupted.

It is time to revert back to our school day routines. For me that means getting up early to make school lunches for my teens, having a sit-down family breakfast, tidying the house and making the beds before going about my work in peace and quiet and one long undisturbed stretch until the afternoon, putting on lipstick every morning, organizing after-school activities, cooking dinner every night, and making sure there is a bedtime.

We need the looseness of summer to enjoy the rigor and organization of the rest of the year, and vice versa. They complement each other in a yin yang kind of way the way week-end vs. week day routines do (see an earlier post on that).