BACK TO SCHOOL BLUES!

The beginning of a new school year always stirs up so many mixed emotions!

On the one hand, we want to drink mimosa’s to celebrate the kids going back to a regular schedule so we can save money on overpriced summer camps or vacations, and so that they will not be home all day tearing up the house, complaining about being bored and eating all of the groceries.

But on the other hand, the reality of what the school year actually brings begins to set in.
Once we step away from that mimosa, we realize that on top of our full time jobs and normal parental responsibilities, we must now adhere to the obnoxious schedules of 3 kids who will need to be toted around to extracurricular activities where everything begins while you are still at work and either ends in the evenings when you *just* get home and are trying to make dinner, or even later after you have reached wine and bath time…and when they do finally get home, they still have piles of incomplete homework sitting on the counter waiting for them because they didn’t understand how to do it…which will inevitably lead to them asking for help, only to end up with them asking if we actually did in fact- graduate high school when we are unable to provide any assistance with their homework. Then we try and redeem ourselves a little by posting the harder questions on Facebook in hopes that one of our teacher friends will bail us out so we can help our kid…..but then start to feel weird about posting additional questions because it’s almost embarrassing when realized that we need help on like…..every single question. Not that this has happened to me…..A lot.

The poor kids will mourn the end of the summertime for months because it is basically the end of their lives as they know it…..at least until the holidays roll around. They are dreading the massive amounts of homework, mean teachers who blame everything on them when clearly they never do *anything* wrong, hard tests that they aren’t prepared for because obviously the teacher forgot to teach them the material while they were paying such great attention in class and not goofing off at all, and then they get to look forward to the nasty cafeteria food menu because mom forgets to pack their lunch….often. So they finish off the school day tired and malnourished but have to run on fumes and whatever trans-fats can be purchased out of the vending machine, if there is a vending machine, to get them through the end of practice and hope that mom made a killer dinner – only to come home to leftover spaghetti from last night because mom is trying to poison them.

Ah, the joy of back to school!! Picture Day is truly the best part about it for me.
When I look back on each year – I don’t remember the stress of what might have been happening at the moment, or the fights I had with my kids about what they should wear, or how mad my girls got at how I fixed their hair….or that my son looks like he is naked and on crack in his swim meet picture….or that he got into trouble by his daddy for making a silly face in his wrestling picture….and that copies of these pictures went to every person on the team and still hang on the walls of the establishments for all to see.

I don't normally post pictures of my kids, but I'll make an exception for this. Go ahead....see if you can pick my son out....

All I remember when looking at back on my children's school pictures is how fast they are growing and how important it is to enjoy this time with them because it will be over before we know it.
Even if we run ourselves ragged this year...remember how blessed we are and that it is all totally worth it!

Here’s to 2016-2017!!!