Dear Lord, Is it Time For my Kid to Go Back to School Yet??

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

 

 

All around the USA, kids are either back in school or almost ready to head back to class.  My girls have long since been out of school, but I remember those days like they were yesterday. I actually liked having my kids home for the summer, but sometimes, depending on the year, I looked forward to them returning.  I didn’t always like the homework, the schedules, and the regimented routine, but for years, it was just a way of life.

 

When your children are very young, the outside world and peer pressure has not yet found a way into their lives, and they still think you are the greatest.  I always volunteered at school, on field trips, and for various school functions and early on, my kids were thrilled to see me.  As years went on, if I had to go to school for some reason, I swear they would jump out of the van while it was still moving to avoid being seen with me on the walk into school.  They ran like little criminals with the police hot on their trail, zigzagging back and forth, their book bags bouncing frantically against their backs, trying to gain speed as they looked over their shoulder to see if I was following.

 

I remember clearly one incident when I knew the tide was turning.  It happened when our oldest, Megan, was very young and I volunteered to go on a field trip to the Baltimore Zoo.  I swear it was the hottest day of the year and the teacher, on the bus ride over, told the volunteer parents that we were not allowed to buy the kids anything at the zoo. Later on in the day, my group was having trouble finding a water fountain, so when I spotted a kiosk selling drinks I headed up to the line to buy us all a drink and my oldest, aka Honest Abe, said she would have to tell her teacher on me if I bought anything.  I should have known this kid was going to be trouble when she brought home a drawing she did of our family when she was in Kindergarten and everyone was average size, except me.  I was twice the size of my husband and she was nice enough to label me biggest in case someone could not grasp that from my humongous stick figure. This was the beginning of the end in my mind as I look back now.

 

In Maryland, where my kids attended school, they have what is called American Education Week and parents are invited to attend school with their children during this week. As they got a little older and less receptive to the idea of their parents showing up at school, this became my favorite week of the school year.  With our kids, we always felt reason did not work well for them, but threats did, and I used this to my full advantage. If I needed them to do something, I would just say, “Do it now, or I will be at your classroom tomorrow morning so fast it will make your head spin,"  and sure enough, they would promise just about anything to see that such a thing did not happen. I don’t know what they thought we were going to do, but I imagined they thought the two of us would show up and say things like, “don’t our young’un look real smart and purty, Ma?…..well, dum burnit, I forget my teeth again….Pa, I brung your spittoon from home, stop spittin’ yer tobacco on the floor!”  Sadly, it all came to an end one year, when my oldest bested me by telling me she would love to have me come, but make sure it was for her fourth period class.  I should have known something was up when I got there and she was smiling, and the smile continued when the teacher informed us that the parents would be asked to participate out loud on a quiz about Longitude and Latitude.  When I looked over at her, she had a smirk on her face and she made sure to make a big show of covering her answers.  When I mouthed to her, “you are dead when we get home,” she knew she had won.

 

Summers between school years always started out great. I loved not having a schedule and homework, but usually by the end of June, I was wondering if I should have tried to get them in summer school.  Nothing drove this point home better than when my youngest, Hayley, asked my oldest, Megan, if President Lincoln was still alive.   The oldest in her haughtiest voice, proving that once again History was not her best subject, informed her that President Lincoln had been shot and killed by a guy named Hitler, while at the movies.  Megan also had a flair for the dramatics and liked to write plays where her dialogue consisted of approximately 40 pages or a 30 verse song and her sister got to say one line like,  “my how pretty you look,” or if Hayley was feeling brave she sometimes improvised with lines like, “I don’t want to do this anymore!” Megan had a lot of friends, but I noticed one girl never returned after being cast in one of Megan’s plays as the next-door neighbor.  Megan, of course, was again the beautiful princess and had the most lines.

 

Usually, by mid July, I was starting to mark my calendar when school started. When you live with two daughters, one an instigator and the other extremely gullible, you do not lack for entertainment, but sometimes I got tired of hearing them bicker.  Hayley believed almost everything her older sister said and one day Megan came home and told her she had just joined the neatest club and did Hayley want to join. It was shortly after she told her she had to write the secret name of the club on her hand that I got a bad feeling, but Hayley insisted she had to be a member.  Sure enough, she wrote the name of the club out and it took a minute for my youngest to tell that Pen15 looks a lot like Penis when written on your wrist in indelible magic marker and then she screamed.  Another summer, Megan told Hayley she was adopted from a family of aliens and Hayley responded each and every time by running to me and asking me if it was true. I knew she was not an alien, but I was starting to think I had brought home Rosemary’s Baby from the hospital instead of my baby Megan.

 

As school starts for another year, many of us have lived through all this and still look back on this time with fondness. We have been through peer pressure, sports, snow days, lost schedules, last minute homework deadlines, book reports, school concerts, fundraisers, picture day, proms, fights with friends, and more.  I used to wish sometimes for them to grow up, so our lives would be less hectic.  The funny thing is sometimes I miss all the chaos and last minute preparations, but mind you, only sometimes.

 

P.S. Stay tuned for my next blog called Dear Lord, Is it Time to Take my Kid Back to College Yet?

[Mimi Linna, Lilly and Lolly]

Joanne- on the bright side- they will be off the payroll in a bit and will only call for money occasionally:)

[shelly]

AMEN, to that, Nicky!!!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Joanne, I am getting a visual of you in that leather coat and long johns. I love the way you think :) I hope the next few weeks are better than the last three weeks for you!

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

This may sound terrible but I hate this time of year more than I hate Christmas.  My boys are both seniors in college and this year was an all time most difficult three weeks I have ever had.  Finally, today, I my son will be sleeping in his own place.  Mind you, on Monday, it will be week 3 of the semester and he still does  not have books but finally has a bed.  Versus the inflatable pool raft he was sleeping on earlier this week.  I'm exhausted.

Laurie, I threatened my son that I would show up in my pajamas if I were called to school.  I think he thought I wouldn't and continued his Junior High attitude with me one morning.   So, I wore a long leather coat, a pair of jeans rolled up, with long johns underneath.   It appeared I had nothing on underneath my coat but long johns. I got out of the car in the parking lot and that was all it took........................   Threats are good    :)  

Hope we all can relax now until the Christmas rush.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Nicky, I loved your comment. How funny about your friend's creative little son. Someday, he will grow up to be somebody special. I love those kids that dance to a different beat. Oh my, I remember those paper mache projects and mobiles :) I still hate packing lunches for anyone.

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

Laurie, I love this post.  I live opposite a school now and yesterday was the first day back.  It brought lots of memories back to me too.  My youngest is starting college in two weeks time.   All those PTA meetings, all those fundraising events.  A loft full of papier mache masks and clay caterpillars.  I loved the girls being on holidays as I hated the routine, the homework and all those school lunches ( I ran out of ideas after the first week back)  I do remember doing several projects and staying up until 4am making a costume for a puppet for Sophie who was having a major panic attack.  

I recently met a friend who told me about his son who came home one day and announced that he had to have a costume for the next day.  It had to be a chicken wearing a raincoat.  (he is eight years old)  and was really worried that he wouldn't have it.  His Mother spent several  very stressful hours making and perfecting the costume and he proudly wore it to school the next day.  Weeks later she met the teacher and asked how the fancy dress had gone.  The answer was that there was no Fancy Dress and that she had been reading a story about a chicken who got caught in the rain and was most surprised when this little boy appeared dressed as the character in the book to school the following day.

God Bless Mothers is all I can say!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Shelly, I have you have a great year and a great 179 days. Your Andrew is definitely my Megan...LOL!! I hated driving with my girls. I am a terrible back seat driver and my DH and I have our worst fights when he drives. He did all the driver's training and the one and only time I drove with my youngest she was furious with me and said she was never driving with me again and I yelled, "you promise!" Good luck!!

Allyson, My dad had three daughters and my husband and I have two. We even had female dogs up until Vern. I agree about middle school and high school...lots of drama, shrieking, and more drama....LOL.

Tina, I loved your story, you naughty girl :) My youngest was like your Lexi. She was always busy...and it seemed to pick up at night when we were the most tired. I used to yearn for quiet too.

F, I cannot believe a son was ever embarrassed of you :) It is clearly a fault of his, not yours.

[F, Calla & Luca]

This bought back memories. I remember walking down the street with my younger son, arms around each other. He may have been around 10. Then he saw a friend headed our way. Lightening is slow compared to the speed with which he distanced himself from me. Looking forward to the next installment.

[Tina, Clover, Plus 5 More]

Laurie, once again you made me laugh and today I needed it.  Megan sounds like my kind of girl.  I was always doing something to my two younger brothers.  Both of them loved magic tricks and were always pretending to be 'THE GREAT HOUDINI".  So one day while my parents were gone, I asked them if they wanted to practice escaping and of course they did.  We had a really big maple tree in our front yard.  I told them it would be a really cool trick if they were tied up around the tree and could escape from it.  Of course they wanted to be cool.  They leaned up against the tree, I tied them up and went inside to watch TV.  What I didn't know was my parents were coming home early.  After 15 minutes I hear someone coming in the front door.  I'm thinking "Man I didn't tie them up good enough".  But what I heard was 'TINA YOU'RE GROUNDED!! GET YOUR A$$ OUTSIDE AND UNTIE YOUR BROTHERS!!".  Over the years it gets harder and harder to pull one on them, but occassionally I still do.

Lexi is so happy to be back at school and right now so am I.  In one of F. Parker's comments she mention Lexi is seemingly always singing and dancing.  Sometimes I really wish I could say that isn't the case but it is.  If Lexi is not singing or dancing, she is cheering, tumbling, talking, running, talking.....you get the idea.  If she isn't making noise she is at school or asleep.  I know I need to cherish it now because someday soon it will be quiet.  But for now, once a year I can be really happy and say "SCHOOL STARTS TOMORROW, YAY".

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Totally meant almost 30...geez, to be 20 again...no cares, in college..biggest worry was the pop quiz and which bar had the $1 beers.