Are We There Yet?

To me it feels like the last few weeks of school are like the last few hours of a road trip home: endless.  You know where you are, you know how much longer it takes to get there and still you are hoping to beat the time/space thing and go faster and get there quicker than you ever have.  However, on this last leg, you are weary, you are tired of everything and everyone and even though you are going as fast as you can, it still seems like it takes forever to get there.

I'm not the only one counting down

I got through the “itises” of April only to be faced with how very long the month of May can be.  Being at school but dreaming about summer makes for some long weeks.  May is busy, crazy, let’s get everything done month and ohmygosh we have to get it all done now!  We need to send $5 here and $10 here and read this email about what happens next Thursday.  I get emails to both home and work, skim them twice and forget about them instantly.  I barely made it onto the Sign-Up Genius in time to get the last easy slot for the end of year party.  Five minutes more and I would have had to bring something other than napkins or water.  The horror!  Exhibition, Welcome to Band, sports banquets, 5^th grade graduation and teacher gifts all this week.  It is like adding a flat tire and a full bladder in the last 20 minutes from home. 

Happily, we are in the home stretch; just finals left at the school here this week and we are down to under 20 kids who still owe a book.  My running around school with my stamper of shame last week paid off!  It really can’t come a minute too soon.  If we were all weary of each other before, we are now down right sick of one another.  Well, at least in our school setting; we still like each other outside of school.  I love the kids who hang out here with us but I need them to stop talking to me.  Right now.  They are getting emotional because they are leaving and I am getting emotional because they won’t stop talking. 

I don’t have much planned for summer but that doesn’t matter, I just want to get there.  I want to sleep in until 6am or maybe even 7!  I want to listen to my own kids talk and not feel beaten down because I have already listened to kids talk all day.  I want to sit by the pool and talk with friends I haven’t seen much since last summer.  I want to take day trips, but no long road trips as I am still recovering from last year’s trip of epic proportions.  I want to not plan lunches until lunch time and please God, no sad salads for lunch all summer long.  I want to exercise a lot and at a decent hour because I can.  I have a stack of books set aside to read and I want to tear into them voraciously and devour each and every one.  I want to force SG to play board games and she will because I have outlawed all screens until after 1pm each day.  I am a mean mom like that.  I want to play 21 in the driveway with the boy but definitely not any of those weird collectable card games he likes.  I just want to be there!

Four more days and we will be there. I can’t wait to say “YES” to the “Are we there yet?” that keeps repeating in my head.   I am not sure any of us are finishing strong but that’s okay because we were strong August through April.  May is for getting ‘er done and this last week in June is like finally reaching your exit on the highway: you’re not quite there but you are so super close that you know you are going to make it.  Hang on summer!  We’re coming!!