The Back To School train.
Yeah….
Depending upon your perspective on those words, they can make you breathe a sigh of relief or pull your hair out.
I know some fortunate people who don’t work outside the home, that do that “sighing” thing. They are tickled to death to have the house to themselves again, free of chaos and noise.
I’m not one of those people. I work full time, write every other possible moment, do laundry/cooking/cleaning (ok not so much) during those same moments. So back to school time is a nightmare for me. Summer is the one time I DON’T have to worry about homework being done, projects being forgotten/late/researched, after-school practices, meetings, tests, football games (see prev post), little sis gifts, and grades. Back To School is a train that roars loud through the whole first semester.
Not that I should have to worry about all that…my daughter is a junior…but I do. She doesn’t. She doesn’t because she knows that I do. LOL. If it were up to her, life would float by and hand her what she needs when she needs it, and it doesn’t seem to matter how many times that concept slaps her down…she doesn’t change. She wants to…I’ll give her that. She always has good intentions. But that cable that connects intentions to actuality? Yanno…the red cable with the yellow dots…not the black one. Yeah, that one. She’s missing it.
I give her journals to keep track of things because the Momma Can’t Keep Doing This train is about to derail,
but they stay blank or full of notes (to friends, not classes) or pictures she’s doodled or story ideas she has (she’s a writer too).
But the Momma Can’t Keep Doing This train isn’t loud enough, apparently. I’m wondering if the Your Car Stays Home Give Me Your Keys train will be louder in a few months.
What are your thoughts? Are your kids self-sufficient in that respect, or do you have your own trains to manage?
Award winning author of sassy, sexy love stories. Texas girl. Wife of Superman. Frequently speak of coffee, dogs, TV shows & men with sexy eyes. {
Well, Sharla, I have two kids – a girl, 12, and a boy, 17, and I would say my son is way more dependent on me than my younger daughter. I’ve always been there for both of my kids (I’m a stay-at-home mom and luckily that works for me because of my writing) and if mom isn’t there, things tend to fall apart, or by the wayside – call it what you will. I asked him to take the dishes out of the dishwasher the other day and he looked at me as if I was looney-tunes! What? Me, take out the dishes? You’ve never asked me to do that before? I mean, COME ON, he THEORETICALLY could move out of the house next year when he graduates high school, right? In reality, I don’t want him to go anywhere and this is his home but my husband says I’ve made both of them TOO dependent on me so I have no one to blame but myself. Should I have gone back to work when they were both born? Nope. I wouldn’t trade those years for anything.
Patti
Hi, Sharla. One’s grown, in fact, his birthday is tomorrow and the other is still in college and living at home. Mostly, I like having him around, but I pray one day, he’ll clean the cesspit he lives in. It infects the whole house! Everyone says give it up, but it really bugs me.
Then he watches a movie with me or goes to lunch and I melt.
My boys are grown now but oh how I remember the return-to-school nightmare. Like you, summer was a vacation from all the school year stuff. No lunches to make. No shopping to do for said lunches. No trying to get kids out of bed before I left for the day job … which was enough of a nightmare because I had one boy who always wanted to sleep till 4:00 in the afternoon. They should have night school for those kids.
My boys actually had to come home from school and take turns making supper. But we ignored messy bedrooms so I guess that was the tradeoff.
Trust me when I say it’ll get easier soon enough. These last few years will fly by and you’ll wake up one morning and realize that the only ones you have to worry about is you and your husband. Whew!
Sharla, I have a son who’s a junior this year and it’s the same thing at our house.. He can be self-sufficient. He just has different goals and priorities than I do. School is not high on his list. Only time will tell if that will change. . .
LOL! So glad to see that mine is not the only sloth!! I kind of remember being that way too…I think. But school wasn’t as important back then. Thanks for comiserating with me! 🙂