It's getting to be that time of year when we're really due for a little back to school schedule and regularity to our days. The way this is becoming most clear is in the amount of sibling bickering and pestering and picking that is going on in this house.

My oldest is at an age where she waffles between wanting to be "all grown up", independent, aloof, and in the next moment right in the thick of the play with her younger sisters. And often those transitions can be awkward and bumpy. Everything is "so annoying", so much so that I think I am going to be banning the phrase from her vocabulary very soon. (this afternoon!)

But honestly, it's the bickering that really wears this mama down. There is no manual to motherhood and I find my own self waffling between "approaches" as well. I so desperately want them to learn to work it out themselves, to stand up for themselves, to let the little sibling-picking slide off them like water off a duck's back. I want them to learn to walk away and not be bothered. To maintain their cool.

I don't want to always be the sounding board, the complaint department where you come to file your grievances.

But I also have to help them work through some of these things. It's hard to know when to step in and when to step back.

And so, this is how I know school days must return. These brains need reviving, rejuvinating and stretching. Energy needs to be expended, but in the right direction.

This school marm is sharpening her pencils.