First, a joke.
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Woo.
Woo who?
Yeah. I’m excited too.
Come on, that there was funny. Okay, say it out loud. See? Funny. (Admit it.)
So, what am I excited about? Well, not much, really. I was being sarcastic.
It is the latter half of August, which means only two and a half more weeks until school starts. That, of course, means back-to-school shopping, both for school supplies and for clothes. I’m finding it a little bizarre that Doodle, a fourth grader, has to have a 4 GB thumb drive. I don’t think I even had to buy notebooks in the fourth grade. I’ve already started saving up for the ridiculous graphing calculator I know he’s going to need. The indelible memory of elementary school, for me, is bringing home those heavy, hardcover text books, science and math and grammar, and covering them in brown paper bags decorated in crayon. These days, you can’t even find brown paper bags in the supermarket.
I’ll drag Doodle and Scooby to the clothing store, maybe enlisting the help of my mother, who loves to shop as much as the little kids hate it. I’ll buy them all off with a lunch at Wendy’s, the reasonable going rate. Life’s a little easier this year, because Doodle, who is going to a new school, has the world’s easiest, no drama uniform (blue or white polo, navy or khaki pants), and Scooby is inheriting the school logo shirts that Doodle doesn’t need anymore. And just like in the olden days when I was a kid, my mother will insist that everyone get new school shoes.
We’ll push the kids to finish a couple more books, which is currency in our house. Boy is trying to make it through six books in order to earn a jacket (and is enjoying it!); Doodle found out three days ago that he has two assigned books to read before school starts, and should have read four more books this summer. Too bad they didn’t send out that little informational postcard in June instead of August, before he started his current 400-page tome. Even Scooby is making her way through a chapter book series, although not as willingly as her brothers.
I’m reading, as well. Books on ADHD, books on how to get my disorganized Boy organized for school, books on how to survive teenager-hood. No fiction for me.
I need to find a tutor for Boy and an after school activity for the kids, preferably one that is very active and has nothing to do with Dr. Seuss. I need to find a new pediatrician so I can fire my old one. I need to make an appointment for Boy for oral surgery so the braces he’s wearing will do some good. I need to map out a workable pickup schedule for the babysitter and figure out if I can afford to give her a raise for her extra effort.
Oh, and I need to take a vacation. Right at the butt-end of the summer, the last full week before school starts, I will cram seven days worth of five people into two cars, drive an hour or so up the highway, and spend a lot of time looking at and listening to the ocean. I may swim (not my favorite activity), but I will certainly tread water. It’s been non-stop motion for eight weeks; eight weeks of driving back and forth across the city, of praying that Boy will get through one more day of summer school, of packing and unpacking and repacking duffel bags and backpacks, of missing absent kids and managing present ones, of updating color-coordinated calendars just to keep track of which child is supposed to be where when.
So, between the busy-ness of summer and the madness of the new school year, I will take seven precious days, which may or may not be relaxing (I am, after all, taking the children with me) and just be. Maybe Rev and I will have some deep conversations; maybe we’ll just sit and look at the water together, silently.
One day like that, maybe two, and I’ll be ready to organize those supplies into those backpacks and send the kids off to face the new school year.
Woo hoo.
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