Shannon of the megablog Rocks in My Dryer held a back to school haiku contest yesterday, and here’s my little entry:
school versus summer:
more pencils, better shoes,
fresh kind of crazy.
I am surely in the population of parents eager for their kids to go back to school every fall. But I also realize that orchestrating school mornings with four kids getting ready and directing school nights with four kids and their homework, chores, showers, and whatnot also brings its own kind of chaos. My friends with children still under 5 get that dreamy look in their eyes when they say, “Oh…I can’t WAIT for them to start school!” Who am I to rain on their parade? They’ll find out soon enough why most of us are still in our PJ’s in the school drop-off line and why sometimes the letters p t & a make us want to crawl under a rock (No more teacher luncheons! No more fundraiser kick-offs! No more laminating, cutting, copying. NO!).
Our own start to this school year has been surprisingly smooth. We are up much earlier this year, since our oldest daughter will be going to church seminary every morning at 6am. That staggers our kids’ departure times to an hour apart – oldest leaves at 5:45, the next daughter at 6:45, and our final daughter and son at 7:45. I’m getting less sleep, but more individual time with them in the morning. It’s been nice. The afternoons are staggered, as well. Most days our oldest has marching band after school, so that means that my 11yr old daughter and I get some alone time until her sister is done. And then the youngest two get home. The constantly revolving door might try to smack me in the forehead some days, but I think taking shifts might have some happy consequences.
I’m also quite happy that I seemed to get it “right” with the supplies this year. Every year I spend a small fortune on WHAT IS ON THE LIST, only to have the teacher send home a note saying, “Johnny still needs x, y, and z. Oh, and this, that, the other, and soforth.” Ugh. We seem to have our bases covered this year, though. Amen to that.
You know what I could without, though? All the forms! Oh, heavens – the forms! It took me AN HOUR AND A HALF last night to fill out all the forms sent home for our four school kids. A side benefit: I was finally able to memorize our home phone, a line we put in not too long ago (and which I never give out – I usually just put my cell). I’m also now remembering all the volunteer forms I checked “yes” on. It must have been the hum of the dishwasher or the otherwise thundering silence of my house during late night that hypnotized me into a fake enthusiasm for helping out. Oh, I guess it’s not that fake – I do like volunteering. I’m just not sure what I’m going to do with baby Eli while all that laminating, cutting, and copying needs to be done. Quick, where did I put that rock?
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Mom
on Aug 26th, 2008
@ 9:36 am:
The forms…the forms…ALWAYS my least favorite part of starting school! I just wanted to write “ditto” on three of the four!! xoxoxoxo
Jennifer
on Aug 26th, 2008
@ 10:35 am:
From a teacher, the forms ARE the worst part! Double checking that every student turned in all 800 billion and that all of them are filled in correctly and that the parents checked yes or no for administering Tylenol and that no students forged their parents’ information. Yuck. I sure don’t miss that.
And P.S. thanks for the laminating and copying and cutting. It makes a big difference.
blarneygirl
on Aug 26th, 2008
@ 1:07 pm:
If the laminating and cutting are stuff you do at home, I’d be happy to help out!! I always thought it’d be cool to volunteer at a school, but was a little unsure how they would look at a single person wanting to help what with how the world is today.
Plus the whole working during school hours and all!!
Kimberly
on Aug 26th, 2008
@ 2:51 pm:
Love, love, love that line! Brilliant!
Heather O
on Aug 28th, 2008
@ 11:41 am:
I totally don’t get all the forms either. You would think that by now you could fill out one per family instead. Blah, the first week back has to be the worst.