It’s not politically correct for moms to confess that we’re glad school has started. We’re supposed to be reluctant to relinquish all that quality time with our children, never mind that for at least two months, our interactions have centered on two phrases: "I’m bo-o-o-o-ored" and "Can I have some mon-ey?"

It’s a fine line we tread, because while we need to convince our children that we’re firmly in support of education, to publicly state that is likely to earn us an accusation of needing "state-supported child care." I don’t need day-care any more; my babies waltzed off to middle school and high school Wednesday morning, and I’m glad. Both of them need more education than their family can provide. What I do need, now that school has started, is an air traffic controller. For the next nine months, we’ll be obsessed with trying to keep track of who needs to be where, when.

Tuesday evening, we sat down to a family meal, one intended to mark the resumption of the sit-down-together rule. It was a rare meal — meat, vegetable, salad, bread, dessert, all made from scratch because one of my fickle children believes that food involving Hamburger Helper or Schwann’s "doesn’t count" — that required both Mom and Grandma to create. We played our ceremonial back-to-school game of Trivial Pursuit, which we adults are terrified of losing. I’m not sure how my knowledge that Jose Canseco is the Texas slugger off whose head a ball bounced for a home run proves that my children need to stay in school, but it’s essential for parents to demonstrate their intellectual primacy at least once a year.

Then school clothes were chosen (and tossed into the washer at 11 p.m. by a child who swore he’d just done his laundry, about three weeks ago!), book bags were set out (at which point the students remembered supplies they’d forgotten to buy), lunch checks were written ("Couldn’t you give me cash?"), a short restless night was spent listening to the thunder, and then they were off.

Woven throughout the evening were hints of things to come. A young man, one of those summer residents gently ejected from the house in mid-afternoon so that we could turn our attention to the tasks at hand, called to ask if we had any of his pants. Over the summer, he’d left them all at other people’s houses. As my daughter and I were putting the finishing touches on dinner, one of her friends came by. Her mother, she said, had forgotten to pick her up. We were preparing to set another place at the table when her family arrived, needing to use the phone because they were still missing one sister.

That’s the reality of the modern family. Children have athletics and music as well as school and homework, and at a certain age, they have after-school jobs as well. There’s soccer on Saturday, and Sunday school and church on Sunday. Parents have paid employment and volunteer responsibilities. Then there are such minor details as grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, paying bills. Nobody sits still for a moment, and that’s the main reason I really am sorry to have school start again.

Those golden, unscripted moments when a child really connects with a parent, rare as they are in the summer, are nearly non-existent during the school year. During the summer, I can ask, "Whatcha doin’?" and peek into their heads, knowing they’re doing something they’ve chosen themselves from a vast array of possibilities. Now they’ll be doing what they’re supposed to, and while that’s good, it’s a sign that they’re a year more grown up, a year closer to leaving my nest. Most days, that sit-down-together dinner will be the only time we’re all in the same place. That makes me slightly sad, and even the fact that my house stays neat for more than 15 minutes nowadays doesn’t make up for it.