I’m no expert on this back to school thing. In fact, I’m already needlessly worried about spelling words and memory work and remembering whose library day is Tuesday and whose is Thursday and wondering how I’m going to fit in piano lessons and swimming lessons (because these are important life skills, damnit!) and why are decent lunch bags so expensive and how did I fall down this lunch-packing wormhole and would my kids please just wear matching clothes for ONE DAY so I can take their picture and post it on Facebook and make it look like I am master of my universe?!?!?!?!
They’ve barely even warmed their seats and I’m already nuts trying to figure out how to juggle it all. It’s a small wonder I even found all 3,412 items on their school supply lists! Kids these days have no idea how much work it is to keep them alive!
Through some amount of determination, I manage to keep it together every year as the kids go back to school. Here are some things that work for our family. Maybe they could work for yours.
1. Google calendar. It’s always with me on my phone. I cram everything in there – reminders about library books, snack days, appointments, and recurring tasks like pay daycare and give a piano lesson. And let’s not forget pajama days at school, God’s gift to parents of children who are difficult to wake up on school days, if I do say so myself. I haven’t missed a single one of those ever.
2. Breakfast menu. Every Monday, my kids eat frozen waffles. Tuesday, they eat cream of wheat. Wednesday is bananas and peanut butter day. Thursday is cold cereal day, and Friday is peanut butter and jelly day. We have changed a couple of foods over the years, but otherwise I have used this menu successfully for over three years.
3. The Four-Week Supper Menu. I consider the four-week menu my crowning achievement in life. Yes, I know I fixed Pizza Corner, too, but the four week menu was a more gratifying achievement. I wrote a menu for four consecutive weeks, and I start at week one, then after the fourth week I circle back around to the first week and go through it again. You can read more about it
here
. I admit it kinda fell apart when summer came around, but it was solid and saved my sanity for most of the school year.
4. Routines. And new rules. Back to School is probably the worst time to start making rapid, sweeping change, but pandemonium is not my idea of a good time either, so I like to take the transitional opportunity of summer’s end to buckle down and really drive my kids crazy with new routines and rules. We’ve got routines for both bedtime and morning, we’ve got rules that prevent TV watching after supper and I am starting this new thing where if they don’t pick up their stuff the first time I ask, I am confiscating it. That’s really going to tick them off, but someday a mother-in-law will thank me for raising a child who knows that socks do not belong right inside the front door.
5. The night before. This may come as shocking news to you, but getting things ready the night before is a real sanity saver. How many times have I stood there with one hand on the door ready to leave yelling at one kid to find her shoes (“But I can’t find them.” “Well, if you had put them where they belong you wouldn’t have this problem.”) and one kid cleaning out her backpack from the day before (“I have to clean this stuff out! My lunch is in here from yesterday and THIS lunch doesn’t fit.” “Ugh. Gross. Why me, God?”)? Too many. So we set out the clothes and make the lunches and go through folders and generally make sure there will be no surprises the next morning. It works, I swear. Except when it doesn’t. Which leads in nicely to my final point…
6. Grace. I give myself a lot of grace. Perhaps too much. I’ve forgotten super hero day and I’ve “guesstimated” on weekly reading totals, and I’ve made my child pick from a smorgasbord of toys on the car floor for Show and Share as we are sitting out front of the school. I’ve driven away before the little dawdlers are all the way inside the school, and I’ve thrown my hands in the air and said, “Screw it! Hot lunch all month!” But seriously, it’s the only way I can make it through sometimes.
So as your cherubic angel starts school this week, remember – we are all slogging through one day at a time. The kids are (hopefully) going to throw themselves out of bed no earlier than 5 AM on the first day of school, unable to contain their excitement any longer, and we’re going to get them there before the first bell and maybe we’ll do a little victory dance in the car or maybe we’ll sob and sob in traffic, but we are going to make those little buggers have a successful year, no matter what!
Oh, and if you’re looking for a little something to up the ante among fellow parents in your circle of friends, place your bets now. You’ll have your first sickness in three weeks. I guarantee it.
Happy Schooling, my friends! Keep on keeping on and don’t worry if you forget pajama day! Just don’t wear pajamas on picture day.
