Done. I am done with school. I am done with early mornings and I am done with packing lunches. I am done with homework, I am done with projects and I am especially done with projects that require poster board or tri-folds. I am done with kids being stressed about testing or kids being too relaxed about testing. I am done with emails home saying "School isn't over yet". The kids are definitely done. I was in the library at school helping out today and the noise in there was amazing. I was also in the cafeteria at school today and the noise in there was tremendous. You could feel the noise rumble in your chest like a herd of elephants approaching the closer you got to the cafeteria. God bless those teachers and the school staff the next few weeks; they deserve combat pay.
I haven't been this eager for the end of school since I was in school myself. Usually I am the parent who knows exactly how many days of summer vacation are left three days into summer vacation. Seeing the big pencil hanging from the ceiling of Target in mid-July gives me a Christmas morning kind of feeling when I see it. I like to buy the school supplies in the beginning of August and lay them out on the dining room table as a warning to the kids and as a beacon of light for myself.
In the beginning of the year, I pack lunches with thought and care and nutritional value. I cut off crusts and write little notes about how much I love you or you make me proud. I use reusable sandwich bags and tiny containers housing tiny healthy snacks. By now most of the reusable bags are lost, the containers have no lids and I am packing Reese Puffs instead of sandwiches because they claim to be fortified with iron and I choose to believe them.
Homework? I am over homework too. They tell me they don't have any, I choose to believe them. This did lead to a harried, hurried project involving posterboard and copious tears from the 5th grader last night but I am focusing on the life skills she is learning. Don't put things off to the last minute and unlike your mother, always have posterboard in the house. Spelling tests? Listen you are three weeks away from the end of 3rd grade, if you can't spell these words by now, well, there is always next year.
Maybe it is because my 5th grader had such a hard year this year and her usual enthusiasm for school and learning has been whittled away to lethargy about school. I want her to have the summer to rest up and get ready for middle school. Or maybe it is because school is such a chore for my 3rd grader and he is tired of holding it together and I am weary of holding him together. Maybe it is once that damn STARR test is over that everyone is just too depleted to keep going. Why don't they have those tests the last week of school?
Realistically, I know that summer vacation can seem endless as well. We don't have any travel plans this summer. No camps lined up. I know it will be 100+ every day and the kids will be bored with being home. I know they will use every glass and plate in the house and leave them all over. I know they will eat more food in a day than I planned on for three days. I know I will have great plans of forcing math facts on them thinking that with all the time we have they will finally embrace and learn them and that they won't. I will get tired of swimming and applying sunscreen and washing towels. I know. But as of right now, it just sounds so much better.
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