School Days Are Here Again

It’s hard to believe that another summer has come and gone so fast.  This is the first summer I’ve worked full-time since I’ve had the kids, so I kind of feel guilty that I wasn’t able to do more with them or take them on a family vacation.  So now I am in the midst of packing up school supplies, slapping name labels on their belongings, and laying out uniforms for them to get dressed in tomorrow.

This year, Felicity and Chase will be going to the same school.  Chase is so excited.  He’s been counting the days down for the last month.  I’m afraid he might be a little nervous, too, though.  Tonight he wouldn’t go to sleep unless I held him.  He said he was “scared,” but I couldn’t quite get him to say what he was scared about, which leads me to believe it’s got to be about the big event happening tomorrow.

There always seem to be two kinds of parents when it comes to kids going back to school: those who can’t wait for the kids to go back to school because they’re bored and driving them up a wall, such as Del, and those who want to keep the kids at home for awhile longer, like me.  In all honesty, there is a bit of selfishness that makes me feel the way I do, and it’s called HOMEWORK!  I am so burnt out on homework.  Take this summer, for instance.  Felicity had a school project that is due the first day of school.  I don’t know what compelled the teachers to assign a project over the summer.  It’s called summer VACATION for a reason.  So the parents can have a break from homework.  But for some reason, the fourth grade teachers decide it would be a good idea to have the kids do a cereal box book report.  They had to wrap up a cereal box in gift wrapping paper.  Then on the front, write the name of the book, author, summary, and draw a picture from the book.  On one side of the box, write the characters with a description of each one, and on the other side, write a review of the book.  All of this seems to be a decent amount of work, but not too terribly bad — until you get to the back of the box.  They had to make up a board game about the story to put on the back of the box.  Are you kidding?!  Really?  Who does this?  I’m all for the summer reading, but this project was the pits.  And Felicity, being the procrastinator that she is – despite my warnings to her about getting the project done early – was still working on it up until bedtime tonight.  I still have to glue all the pieces in place on the box.  This year, not only will I have Felicity’s homework to worry about, but now I’ll also have have Chase’s.  Great, homework times two.  Good times.

Which reminds me … I still have a bunch of supplies to pack …