This week was true epoch in my life as a parent of five children. Yes, at last, for the first time, the seemingly impossible has happened: all my children are in school.

Go ahead, ask. Ask the same question everyone asks. “What are you going to do all day now?” (Be sure to have a faintly worried look, as if my idle hands will be doing the devil’s work.) I’ll tell you. My hopes for the school year include:

1) Fall 2008: Collapse into three-month coma.
2) Winter 2008: Sleep ten hours a night.

Ah, the sweet sounds of summer – the sprinkler chugging around and around the lawn, the sounds of happy children at play, the vocal-cord-shredding screams of my 6-year-old getting whacked with a lig