Winding Down for Summer?

Summer vacation is just a few weeks away, and with it comes the springtime rush of school events, playoffs, year-end parties, concerts, dance recitals, closing meetings, teacher gifts, and last days. Preschool is over, routines are disrupted, schedules are ever-changing, and I am in a perpetual state of confusion. Are we winding down, or winding up?

Every morning I ask myself the four W’s: Who has a classroom visit, field trip, concert, graduation, field day, meeting? What are we supposed to wear, bring, sign, buy? Where am I going (and where will I park)? When do I have to be there (especially if I want a place to park)? And of course, the one H - How am I going to be at this, that and the other thing all at once?

Usually about halfway through the morning, I go through this process anew, starting with “What day is it again?” I review how the week is going to play out so often in my mind that sometimes I think I’ve finished a day, but I’m still in the first quarter. Other times it is still two days away.

I try to program the calendar on my phone to beep with reminders and alerts ahead of time. Still, I spend most afternoons worried that I’ve forgotten someone or something. But I figure if nobody is calling, I must be okay.

Of course, one rescheduled field day, and things start tumbling like a row of dominoes. For a moment, I enjoy the unexpected free time, but then I start to wonder how do I move those three hours to the next week?

Around this time of year, I start to think that each year is passing faster than the previous one. Perhaps the earth’s rotation is actually speeding up and nobody is telling us? This year in particular has been an especially confusing blur in our house due to an unusual amount of sick days and resulting doctor appointments disrupting every other week. In addition to seven antibiotic prescriptions, we have endured weird ailments like fire ant bites, a nasty sunburn acquired in the rain, and severe poison ivy on one who barely even walks through the grass. I’m blaming it all on the unlucky “13” in 2013, but regardless of what is to blame, the result has been day after day that did not go as scheduled. Add to that the cool weather patterns that kept us in a perpetual state of March throughout May, and June just snuck up on me.

So here we are, on a mad dash to the end of the school year, every minute planned with events overlapping. It’s been the first year where my husband and I have had to split up, each taking one child to an event, and the other having to miss it (old hat for you sports parents, I know).

Was I the only one cheering the miserable weather early on Memorial Day weekend, leaving us with nothing to do but hunker down with the family and stay home? It was so refreshing for my crew to have no deadlines and rush to nowhere.

In the midst of the flurry, the day-to-day is still occurring. But the mundane tasks are starting to take a backseat. The house is messier, the laundry is piling up, and there’s an awful lot of takeout in the fridge. Though I know it’s not true, it feels like the learning portion of the school year is over and I’m already looking ahead to the next. Checking homework, reviewing papers, and packing lunches have been pushed aside to focus instead on ordering school supplies, anticipating new teachers, and considering Fall activities.

My kids are ready for summer, and as a parent, I am ready too. Ready to sleep in a little, no frantic rush to the busstop. Ready to give the chauffeuring a rest and swap the backpacks for beach totes. But unlike the kids, my excitement will last for about a week. Then the days get long again, oh so long (wait, maybe that’s how that Earth rotation thing balances out).

I’d better find a minute this week to find those camp registration forms that have been buried in my to-do pile, forgotten in the recent chaos. Otherwise, what are we going to do with all that free time?