Even though I swore, at some point during our days of early parenting, that I wouldn't be one of those parents who pulls out endless stories about "how it was in the old days" I continually find myself doing just that lately. I did it this weekend when, despite the glorious spring weather and the beckoning backyard, L. refused to get dressed and do anything outdoors.

"When I was your age I played outside ALL the time," I told him. "There was no computer, or Nintendo games, or even a room full of toys."

It's my husband's birthday today, his FORTIETH. I turned forty six months ago--painfully, and with lots of foot-dragging. I've felt a little lonely about it, too, being the only one in our house who's that old.

Not long ago, I was at Starbucks waiting for a friend. It was an unseasonably balmy day for February, so I was sitting outside, enjoying the sun and the warm breeze. A few minutes later two young college girls came and sat at the table next to me. They were both tall and thin, with those straight up and down, sinewy bodies that all those other clothes out there are made for--you know, those skinny jeans and tight layered shirts. I couldn't help eavesdrop a little on their conversation. They were talking in a gossipy way about a friend of theirs, who was having problems with her back.

I had great plans for something else to write about for today, but then I spent one hour and 45 minutes at the DMV yesterday, waiting to get my license renewed.

If you've been following this blog for awhile now, you might have picked up on the fact that here at Professor Mom's house, we're a family that loves a good tradition. And while we might muddle through much of this parenting business, there is one thing I've held onto steadfastly through it all: traditions are important--they are the splashier counterpart to that other important part of daily life: routines. Perhaps the most difficult part of adjusting to parenthood is how you have to give yourself over to routines, so early on.

I have a running letter in my head I've been writing for years now, a letter to T. Almost every day I add a little to it—all the things I want to say to her and don’t, or can’t; or will, when the time comes.

Some of these things are apologies, for how difficult home life can be sometimes, in those dark, rocky, spiraling spaces of time, when things are bad with L., and how sorry we are that try as we can, there are many days we just can’t strike a balance.

Don't give up on us, I write to her in my head.

I was going to sit down and try and write a Bag of Tricks post with advice about how to get off-schedule, going-to-bed-late, hyped-up-on-cookies and sweets children back to a routine come Monday, the day when most kids will be heading back to school, and parents back to work. Then I realized that I didn't have much advice to offer--my bag is decidedly empty. We woke up at 9:30 on Saturday (don't hate us--remember, L. didn't start sleeping through the night until he was EIGHT) and one of my first thoughts was how on earth were we going to get up at 6:30 on Monday morning.

Even though I love this time of the year, and all the holidays that come stacked in a line one after the other, like giant, glittering dominoes, sometimes I wish the holiday season weren’t also such a whirlwind. I feel like only yesterday I was watching the kids unpack scarecrows and ghosts and skeletons from the Rubbermaid bins, and then I blinked and we were digging out the Thanksgiving wreath and the pumpkin-colored candles, and all I could think about were those warm, comfort foods of the fall, and which pies I might bake this year for Thanksgiving.

Back when I was a kid, sick days seemed a little golden, somehow, tinged with a magic to them, spun from something out-of-the-ordinary. It was never fun to be sick, but getting to stay home was like being given a chance to step back into those perfect days of very early childhood, when you could lie cocooned in bed, drifting in and out of sleep to the steady hum of household rhythms, or the comforting background of the television or radio noise rising and falling around you in waves and you waited.