Fall comforts

Well here we are nearly half way through September.  I did some baking over the weekend, bought some new yarn to start knitting again, and started some new glaze designs that I will show off later this week after my glaze firing tomorrow.  Things are starting to settle in at home and at school after a week of sick kids and half-starts of classes.  My boys are now in grade 1 and 3 and while everyone is congratulating me on all the time I will now have, it's not quite as easy as it seems. 
I've mentioned a few times that my older boy has some learning disabilities that were diagnosed at the end of the school year last year.  We were given a unique opportunity to send him to a Literacy Program that our school district offers for specific kids that have certain learning disabilities this fall.  The program is only about 2.5 months long- from end of September until beginning of December, but it requires a lot of extra homework and a commute to this new program.  We are really grateful that our son was able to get in, especially starting the school year off with the program.  It's just going to make for a really busy and different fall than I had imagined. 
I guess I've been 'dreaming' about this time in my life for a little while now.  The time when I would drop my kids off at school and then get to the studio for 5-6 hours a day monday through friday.  Without having to pay for extra childcare.  The reality is that life is never quite as we always imagine or plan for, there will always be circumstances that come up that create challenges we might not have expected.  My challenges are really small in comparison to some of the greater challenges out there.  And I'm pretty grateful to be in this place, comforted by the opportunities we've been given, content in knowing that not everything is always as it seems and that there is a silver lining in every circumstance.