HE SAID/ SHE SAID:
Back to School
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___ Every year it's the same. School starts, and our lives are not our own. We become slaves to the almighty schedule and calendar of many events.
___ Once our routines are established and we get into a groove, it isn't that bad. But the start of school is insane. Between the first Scout meetings, extra band practices to learn n
ew instruments, resuming Wednesday nights at church with children's choir and missions programs, soccer practices, PTA meetings and the like, our calendar looks like someone took a whole month's worth of items and compacted them all into one week.
___ Take a look at last week. Monday: no school, but boys had a swim party. Tuesday: homework and piano lessons after school. Wednesday: get up early for Beta club meeting before school, homework, band master classes at the junior high, then church, then back home to do more homework and piano. Thursday: homework, master classes, PTA flag ceremony, meet the teacher night, more homework. Friday: soccer practice, birthday party. Saturday: annual meeting at piano teachers' house, soccer game, attend college football game; Sunday: Sunday School, church, lunch, another birthday party, piano practice, homework.
___ May I scream now? And they tell me it only gets worse as they get older!
___ Getting used to homework again is probably the biggest adjustment the boys make every year. Added to that stress is the increase in the volume and difficulty of their homework this year.
___ A friend of mine and I agreed that we now dread 3 o'clock, when our time is not our own and we start working on our nag of the year awards. You would think by now the boys would learn that homework is a given and that TV and computer games are off-limits until said homework for the day is done. But every year they act like I'm the most unreasonable, meanest mom in the world for wanting them to get their homework and piano practice done before suppertime.
___ I'm ready for a vacation already!
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___Every year, the stress level in our house from mid-August through the end of September reaches record levels. This would not be an ideal time for our family to become the subject of a reality-based television show. I don't think any of us would win the Miss Congeniality award.
___What's really scary is that we know people with kids the same age as ours who
have even busier schedules than we do.
___The back-to-school bustle also reminds me that different people have different levels of tolerance for calendared activity. I, for example, thrive on a busy schedule. Alison, on the other hand, would like nothing better than a totally blank calendar and a stack of books to read (or maybe uninterrupted access to her favorite computer games, but that's another column).
___The biggest problem about back-to-school season is that it challenges the organizational skills of every member of the family. This is the same family in which one child last year lost his class work somewhere between his school desk and the teacher's desk.
___That same child this year has been entrusted with the care of a saxophone. Oh, my!
___My favorite thing about school starting is that I finally have an opportunity to get to bed at a decent time. With each passing summer, Alison and the boys keep me up way too late. The downside is that I no longer have free reign of the breakfast table space.
___That is, if I can find the breakfast table, which already is piled high with papers sent home from school. Notices from teachers, announcements about upcoming events, PTA fund-raising materials, homework returned, school projects in progress. If paper sent home from school could be recycled as food, we'd never have to go to the grocery store again.
___In recent years, I've been reminded that I first grew to love the old Shaker tune "Simple Gifts" during the fall season when we lived in Kentucky. That, of course, was before kids, when we still felt the rhythm of the school season without having to be plunged headfirst into it personally.
___ Despite our best intentions of applying spiritual disciplines, it's now hard this time of year to think of any such thing as "simple" gifts. And beside, the word "gift" makes me think of Christmas, which is just around the corner, you know. Better check the calendar once again.
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2002: 1/14, 2/4, 3/11, 4/8, 5/20, 6/24, 8/5
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