"If you aren't ready, just fake it."

That's what my principal said to us yesterday as we had one final faculty meeting before freshman orientation. What he meant was not to worry if your bulletin boards weren't finished; they would be too excited/nervous/terrified to notice. And you know what? He was right.

This whole going-back-to-work thing happened suddenly. I'm faking everything these days, because I'm just not ready. Not ready to teach algebra, not ready to leave my baby for eight hours a day, not ready get up every day at 5am. And I'm definitely not ready to run my first 5K race tomorrow morning! Whew! What was I thinking?

Laurel is moments away from standing on her own. She's been pulling herself up for a while, but she's getting a little more daring and letting go for a few seconds. She's eating up a storm, especially if M seasons her food or gives her things like goat cheese. And prunes. Boy does she love prunes. (As the person who launders the cloth diapers, I am not so much in favor of them, however.)

Come Monday morning, I'm going to have a full schedule of ninth grade math. Laurel will start daycare. M is starting a new semester of graduate school. All of us may be faking it a little bit to get through the day. But life is moving in a generally good direction.