#1 Son moved home yesterday. I could tell because all of his worldly possessions were piled in his room when I got home last night. (Readers will remember that he moved out “only for the summer, Mom.”)

Moo Cow was curled up on top of #1 Son’s clothes, purring. She’s happy he’s back. Captain Kidd was whacked out because something in his tiny little universe changed and he wasn’t consulted. He got over it by bedtime. Phoebe could care less.

After three months of silence, last night it became obvious that I will have to again get used to going to sleep with the TV in the family room and the lights in the kitchen on. But I’m so glad to have him back, that I can adjust pretty darn quickly. Although I don’t begrudge him the opportunity — it was good experience for him — I missed him a lot. He’s good company.

This morning there was a body-shaped lump in his bed. We’re back to business as usual.

Well… not quite usual. This week is the first time in 12 years that I haven’t taken the first day of school off from work in order to make sure that buses were met, someone was at school on time with the right supplies, etc. This year there was no last-minute frantic search for just the right notebook. (One year I went to three different stores to find 4 tear-out graph-paper notebooks. There were several of us moms looking, and when some were finally located we were ready to fight over them.) This year I didn’t have to fight the traffic trying to get in and out of the school drop-off.

This year school is fading back into the background noise of something that other people’s kids do.

I now have a young man ready to start college at the end of the month. It still brings a lump to my throat.