We Can Do This!

 

Today, I’m typing this mainly as a mother. A mother of three kids, a mother of twins, a mother of special needs children, A PTSA mom, a working mom, and a dance mom. Many of you my readers are in the same boat, and if you’re here in the great PNW, you are currently doing the back to school countdown with me. Twelve more days.

 

As much as I love freshly sharpened pencils, organized desks and untouched notebooks, I don’t much love the last two weeks of summer, the days filled with anxiety regarding the unknown, new friends, new teachers, new schedules. I cope by writing lists and schedules – dance schedules, therapy schedules, schedule schedules, meeting schedules, PTSA schedules, and my kids, they each react in their own way. Mia is constantly in tears because she is so overwhelmed. Max, oh my sweet, sweet Max, he must have at least three squirrels and a colony of ants in his pants. I silently pray that he would be still for a minute, and above anything else my dear, please shut up. Magnus has developed this throat clearing tick on top of his usual leg scratching, and me, the mom, I am counting days for school to start. Please, let this be over soon. Anything is better than these last two weeks.

 

Yes. I really am waiting for school to start. Even this year, when no one really knows how things will pan out with remote learning. Yes, I have seen the sample schedules, but they are just samples as every school and teacher has their own way of working. What it will truly look like, we have no idea. In the wee hours of the night I wake up and spend time worrying about things that I can do nothing about, like will the internet work, how will the network speed be with the 652 houses in our neighborhood, and most of them having several people working from home and going to school at the same time. For some reason that can feel like a significant threat at 3 AM. Way more than the fact that we will have three kids attending school from home and I, as the mom, will have to navigate between three kids computers whilst trying to do my own work. Because, if the internet fails, all fails.

 

There have been articles and blog posts regarding the importance of having your kids get dressed, pack their backpacks and march around the house before lining up for school. I’m not that mom. I have mostly been wearing my sweatpants and a t-shirt since March, and I have no reason to ask my children to get dressed either. I work quite well in my sweats. So does my husband, and I believe my kids will too. Neither do I believe in being more oriented for school after walking up the stairs with your empty backpack, however I’ve been joking around that I will create a school cafeteria in our kitchen and that we will be serving school cafeteria food; rubbery pizza, corndogs, premade burgers, bologna sandwiches and a salad bar with canned corn and apple sauce. They will have to line up, hand me their lunch card and they will have to pick a drink, a fruit/vegetable and a main course. Then they will be seated around the dining table and a few minutes before lunch ends, I will ask them one by one to put their trays away and go out to recess. Mia can go to the library, the boys will have to go outside. That’s just a joke though.

 

We will be smarter in twelve days, and by mid-September we have some sort of a feel what this will really look like in our daily lives. Come November this will feel like we have never done anything else. So, hang in there my fellow parent. We can do this!