Going Through The (Slow) Motions

Well, we've almost made it parents. We're in the final stretch. The last few weeks of school. (Well, those of you who live on the East coast with me. Some of you are already living the summer dream. You can sit out this first paragraph.) Somehow, these last few weeks manage to feel both long and short at the same time. It's called the "End of the School Year Paradigm Shift". Ok, it's not, I just wanted to make it sound cooler. Mostly we just call it June or for short: The Hellishly Long Month of Field Trips and Movie Days.

When the school year starts, I'm always raring to go. I've had months of time with them driving me nuts, I mean, making memories, and I'm ready for them to get back to the routine. I'm organized, prepared, and focused. This lasts through the fall and even into the winter, though each passing month seems to subtract a little bit of focus and organization.

Then spring break comes and all hell breaks loose.

I don't know if it's because we usually take a vacation during this week, or if it's just the general feeling in the air, but after spring break, I'm just phoning it in. Yeah, the kids lunches are packed, if by packed you mean I wrote a check for their school lunch account. Yeah, I'm still picking out clothes for the younger ones, but now that it's just shorts and tees, I'm lucky if I'm paying attention enough to make the pieces match.

And.....that's about it. Checking their planners? Uh, yeah, I totally do that (when I remember). Making sure number 3 is hitting his 20 minute daily reading quota? Completely on top of that (In fact, we've almost finished January!). Packing a daily snack? Sure, when he reminds me. Ok, listen, that one isn't my fault. The kid went on snack strike for 3 months and then one day asks me why I'm not buying snacks.

Um, because you told me you aren't eating them?

So it's a little bit of joy when you're counting down until the last day of school. Think of all the freedom! No more packing lunches and coordinating clothes! No more scheduling art shows and baseball practices in your jam packed calendar. You don't even have to be home by 8:30 now because they don't need a good night's sleep for the next day. They're only going to ride bikes, rot their brain with television, and eat sugary cereal anyway. How much more damage can one less hour of sleepy time cause?

And this joy will continue for about 38 minutes. That's when you have to referee the first argument between numbers 2 and 3. Plus the baby's schedule is different, which has made him cranky, "no one" locked the Netflix account by putting in the wrong password too many times, and "someone" keeps stealing the milk because you're already on the third gallon of the week and it's only Monday.

Very quickly the tables turn and now you're counting down the days until school again. Which kinda sucks for us parents. Because once upon a time, we got to enjoy summer too. Sure, it was probably outside of those 40 hours a week that we're required to earn a paycheck, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. (Because these were the days we sent the kids to the sitter. If they were fighting, we sure as hell weren't dealing with it. Ah, the good old days.)

But now the kids are at home. Except the baby (who's almost 2 1/2 now but will forever be the baby by luck of birth order.) who is still a good boy and goes to the sitter. Which means we get the referee calls and the "Mom, he/she said/did this completely innocuous thing to/at/near/around my general vicinity. Food disappears quicker, dishes mysteriously dirty themselves, and you can kiss a clean house goodbye until September.

So long as work is there for me to escape to, they might make it back to school. In one piece. With their mother's sanity intact. Until then, I better ask my doctor for a prescription of Prozac. I have a feeling I might need it.