Julie’s slice of life From kindergarten cop to college mom By Julie Compton “How much longer?” my agent asks, referring to my next book. She’s anxious to start making the rounds to publishers, to start shopping it. The publishing world pays lip service to quality, but the greenbacks flow most freely to those who can produce a novel a year. Two a year? You’re golden. I’d call myself bronze, at best. I’m lucky if I write a first draft in 15 months. Two years is more realistic. “It’s summer,” I say. “Hard to get any writing done when the kids are home.” And that’s true. But here’s the thing: I don’t want to get any writing done. I want to spend every waking moment with my chil- dren, be- cause for the first time since the oldest started kinder- garten, I am acutely aware of how few days I have left to watch them while they sleep, or to cook enough decent meals so that they re- member me as the mom who fed them well instead of plopping another pizza on the din- ner table. Why this realization? My oldest daughter is about to leave for college. The younger one, who just entered tenth grade, is not far behind. I should feel lucky. The parents I know who have college bound kids have already bid their goodbyes. But my daughter’s school of choice doesn’t start until mid-September; we’ll drive her up for move-in and orientation a few days before. So I have a few extra days to hug her and make sure she knows she’ll always be my baby. Yeah, just what she wants to hear. I can still remember vividly the day she climbed the tall steps of the school bus for the first time. We lived in the suburbs of Boston, and if autumn is synonymous with going back to school, autumn in New England, with its brilliant colors and scent of burning leaves in the air, is the quintessence of the season, at once inspiring and heartbreaking. I cried my eyes out when that bus pulled away. My husband and I followed the bus. Yep, you didn’t misread that. We followed the bus. Once we were no longer in our daughter’s line of sight, we jumped in our car and quickly Jessie’s first day of kindergarten 118 | LAKE MARY Life • September/October 2010 Family Fare