There’s magic in the air this week. All around, you can see
parents with a lilt in their step and a song in their hearts.
Because this is the most wonderful time of the year.
There’s magic in the air this week. All around, you can see parents with a lilt in their step and a song in their hearts. Because this is the most wonderful time of the year.
Yes, it’s Back to School. And frankly, I could not be more overjoyed.
Oh, please. Stop judging. Even those perfect parents who never serve store-bought chocolate chip cookies at teddy bear teas, have never purchased, worn or grown out of a pair of fat pants, have activities planned all summer long and have never heard the dreaded words “I’m bored” coming from the mouths of their perfect children are overjoyed.
Hello? Summer is long, people. Oh maybe not to the kids. Look, ask any school-age child and he or she will be horrified to know that the first day of school is right around the corner. To them, summer started yesterday, or possibly even just this morning right after they finished eating their Fruit Loops and watching “iCarly.” For parents, summer started about 10 years ago and we haven’t had a by-ourselves-bathroom-break since.
Seriously. I don’t know a mom on the planet who isn’t thrilled to wave that bus goodbye on the first day of school. And those tears
glistening in their mommy eyes? Those are tears of joy.
Now this is partly due to the fact that we spend the entire week before school starts spending a small fortune on backpacks, calculators, pencils, rulers, notebooks, lunch bags, binders and college-ruled paper. And all of it will be lost/stolen/borrowed/left on the bus by the third day of school.
And let’s not even get into the clothes and shoes. Maybe we’ve cut back a bit, but we still will have dragged the unwilling to the mall to purchase everything from tighty-whiteys to hair-bands. And yet, on the first day of school, the kids come home convinced they bought all the wrong outfits and they need to go to the mall immediately and buy more or their lives are ruined forever. It’s enough to make a mom’s head explode.
We’ve also spent an entire summer at the beck and call of our kids. I don’t care if you stay home or work, have preschoolers or high schoolers, at some point during the summer you were at the beck and call of your child. Personally, I try to view this as a learning experience. Because, you know, I live on the river called de Nile and believing that helps me cope.
So I had plenty of learning experiences during my long, cold summer. For example, I learned that I could be a free taxi service. I got to drop off at the movies, pick up at the movies. Drop off at paintball, pick up at paintball. Drop off at a friend’s house, pick up at a friend’s house. Heck, I was even asked to taxi around my own neighborhood when Junior just couldn’t carry the assortment of bike ramps, skateboards, grinding rails, bikes, basketballs and RC cars that had been dragged out through the day. Yeah, that didn’t work out for him, in case you were wondering.
I got to learn the names of every single child in our neighborhood, as they traipsed through our house, leaving thousands of sweaty footprints since apparently none of them wear socks and all of them removed their shoes at the door. I learned how to make No-no Lulu release her death grip on footballs, the shoes of Junior’s friends, those little birdy things used in badminton, water balloons and several dangerous wild animals known as mice and lizards.
And those are just a few of the many talents I discovered over summer. I also developed a talent for yelling momisms like, “If you’re having a water fight, use a water gun, not the hose!” I was heard to yell, “I don’t care who started it, I’m finishing it!” And the ever popular, “I don’t care if so-and-so’s mother allows this, I’m your mother and I don’t allow it!”
So thank goodness school starts soon. Because I’m not sure I know any more momisms to yell.
