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.
3) Spring 2009: Engage in riotous living, defined as daily showers and a piece of chocolate.

I think this is any parent’s just reward after, say, twelve straight years of childrearing. It’s not quite true, but it expresses how great I feel about this transition. A lot of people will tell you that raising school-age kids isn’t easier than raising babies and toddlers, it’s just as hard in different ways. Not on my planet. My life is better in so many ways now that the kids are older:

One: Less contact with bodily fluids. No diapers, less vomiting, no need to hold wads of tissue while someone blows.

Two: Faster deployments. No more half-hour routine of socking, shoeing, face-wiping, coating and buckling just to get in the car.

Three: Less cleaning. Smaller toys, less spilled food, more hands on deck to clean.

Four: More sleep. Yes, I can count on at least eight hours every single night.

Five: More peace and quiet. For a seven precious hours a day, it’s silent in my own home. I can’t begin to express how restorative this is for me.

All this makes a tremendous difference. I can’t say I’m actually doing anything radically different than during the Before School era—I’m still working half-time, managing a large household, and parenting five kids. The difference is, I can actually handle it without having a nervous breakdown. Deadlines get met, the house has never been more orderly and peaceful, and we eat real meals more often. We have actual routines. In the mornings, all the kids change into clean clothes, brush their hair and teeth, and eat breakfast, every single day. I’m embarrassed to say I was never able to make that happen before. I’ve even been able to get every kid to read for twenty minutes every day like I was supposed to have been doing for the past seven years. All this has helped me realize that I’m not so incompetent at this whole parenting thing--I was just too frazzled before. Every day when the kids pile on the bus and head for Forest Hills, I smile and wave buh-bye, but I genuinely smile when they come back too. There is something wonderful about being rested enough to fully engage with your kids.

I don’t mean to rub it in to those of you still slogging through Babyland. I’m telling you, take heart. It really does get easier. Cut corners, be kind to yourself, get by as best you can for now, and one day, the kindergarten bus will whisk your youngest away and you too can do the happy dance after the bus rounds the curve.

You’ll still have plenty of parenting work to do, I promise.