Barrington Area Library notes

Kids may call it the first day of school. But parents might well refer to it as Liberation Day, instead.

No matter what you call it, area kids returned to school Wednesday. And some parents celebrated with a little R&R.

Kiera Doster of St. Charles popped into the Starbucks in downtown Geneva shortly after dropping off her son Jayden, 5, at preschool.

"I usually work, but I took the day off," said Doster, waiting for her coffee. "I'm going to enjoy my coffee for about 10 minutes, and then I'm going to go to the gym."

Julie McMillin and Denise Fauntleroy were enjoying not only a companionable cup of coffee but also the mild summer weather (it wasn't too muggy yet), sitting outside at Starbucks. Their kids are older -- one in college each, plus high school students -- and they'd actually tried to get together earlier in the week. When that didn't work, they decided on the first day of school, "when everybody's gone."

And McMillin reminisced about that day many years ago, when her daughter and son were in first and third grades. She called her husband, she said, asking him, "Guess who's in the car with me." The answer? "No one!"

The first few days after school starts take some getting used to, they said. "It always feels a little funny, a little quiet," Fauntleroy said. "And the house stays clean all day," added McMillin.

Deborah Ost of Geneva was sipping her coffee and enjoying the silence. She'd already gotten son Blake off to middle school and had dropped off son Kyle, a senior, to his Early Bird gym class at Geneva High School.

"It's nice to relax a little bit," she said, while waiting for her mother to join her. It's also nice, we both agreed, to return to the structure, the routine of the school-year schedule.

I saw a number of other women -- and I know at least a few of them are mothers of school-aged children -- out and about, ducking into Starbucks and heading back out again, enjoying that first taste of freedom.

Other parents might have been indulging themselves at the gym, as Kiera Doster intended.

Sunset Racquetball and Fitness Center posted a big surge in attendance, starting about 8 a.m., said Sunset coordinator Joann Able.

And it seemed "a little bit busier than usual" Wednesday morning, said an employee at Delnor-Community Health and Wellness Center in Geneva. She did add that that hour -- near 8:30, 9 a.m. -- tends to be pretty busy anyway.

Of course, life is a series of tradeoffs. Yes, it's nice to have a return to routine and to structure. But a schedule also means a lack of the freedom that also was part and parcel of summer. Before too long -- this evening perhaps -- as parents scramble to begin another week, to find permission slips, gym uniforms, reading logs, lunch sacks and errant books, they may think wistfully of having a day off.

Lucky us. Labor Day is just a week away.