All The Remembering

Last night at dinner and on the eve of our 8th snow day off from school this year, I was lamenting about the number of days that the Fruit Loops have been underfoot, bored, and full of bicker. The number of days that I’ve been forced to reschedule appointments and become Julie the Cruise Director in the middle of a Frozen cruise.  The number of times I’ve wanted to scream, “No!  I don’t want to build a frigging snowman…shut up, Elsa!!” in the middle of the kitchen.

I complained that I hated that the make up days eat into our summer vacation. With every day off for frozen precipitation, we have one less day in the glorious, carefree days of summer sun.  With every robocall from the Stepford wife voiced lady in my phone declaring a day off from school, I see a tiny bit of my summer tan eek away from my skin and a modicum of my sanity leaves my brain.

And then Hubby and I had the following conversation:

Hubby: “What’s the big deal? So, they’ll be home in tomorrow and you’ll get a free day to write in June. Sounds like a win win, to me…”

Me: “But I haaaaate when the school year is extended. By June, I’m soooo done with school.”

Hubby: “Uh, why? The kids make their lunches and you are home alone for six hours a day. What’s so taxing about the school year?”

Oh, boy.

The man really doesn’t get it, does he?

The 180 days that the Fruit Loops are in school are so much more than just a packed lunch and an alarm set to go to the bus stop on time.

There’s just so much remembering during the school year.

The remembering and the scheduling and the remembering of the scheduling hurts my head.

And by June, I’m tired of remembering that:

Fruit Loop #1 likes peanut butter and jelly and Fruit Loop #2 likes just peanut butter.  Don’t screw this up or it’s a major topic of conversation right off the bus.

You must carve out enough time in the afternoon for Common Core math homework.  At least forty minutes of your time must be free to learn how to do math that you no longer understand.

One must recall that the Room Mom asked for skeleton napkins for the Halloween party and that you should buy them when you see them in Target.

You should check Fruit Loop #1’s grades every week because teachers no longer have the time to reach out when your child is struggling.

One must sell pies during the November fundraiser so that when your child attends the class field trip in May, you’ll be able to pay $10.24 less.

You must also remember that you sold pies in November for when you write the field trip check, less $10.24, in March.

You must remember all iCloud passwords.  Because texting is important when you are twelve.

You must remember that the Fruit Loops love little notes put in their lunch boxes.  And you have to remember to draw pictures sometimes, too.

You have to plan your family calendar with surgical precision and be able to recall all activities on every single day so as to not over schedule.

You must remember to carve out time for the Fruit Loops to just be Fruit Loops.  Somewhere between the forty minutes of Common Core homework, the hour of track practice and the forty-eight minutes it takes for them to take a shower, they have to be plain old kids for at least twelve minutes a day.

You have to remember to buy teacher gifts.

And bus driver gifts.

Permission slips should be signed and returned “in a timely fashion”.  Which means not the day AFTER the field trip.

You must monitor every text, every social media post, every interaction with every child all the time because cyberbullying is real.  And you have to monitor the parents’, too.  But only if you can remember the passwords.

You have to remember that being in third grade is hard.  And some days, your nine year old will need to cry during the forty minutes of Common Core math homework.  On those days, you’ll need fifty-eight minutes to complete the homework.

You have to figure out how to make dinner every night, in the midst of track practice, Scouts, Hubby’s schedule, and PTA meetings.

You have to remember to nurture your friendships in between committee meetings, work demands, and after school activities.

You have to remember that the laundry pile will look the same next Tuesday but your relationship will not if you don’t tend to it daily.  Squeezing in some couple time after Common Core homework but before Grey’s Anatomy is important.

You must remember that it’s Gym Day and they have to wear sneakers or the Gym teacher gets twitchy.

You must remember to buy the Gym teacher a nice Christmas gift to make up for all the days your child wore her sandals to school.

You must never let their lunch money account run low.  Nothing ruins a morning like hearing “Mommmm, I can’t buy lunch today because my account is empty!!”.

You need to remember to have emergency soccer snacks for 20 on hand at all times so that, when you remember that you forgot about the practice snack at 10 pm, you are covered.

You have to remember that being a kid is hard and being a parent is harder.   You have to remember to give other parents a break.

And most of all, you must remember to give yourself a break, too.

The school year is a constant jumble of remembering and forgetting and remembering again.  The stress of the all the remembering finds me nearly brain dead when June finally rolls around.  By the time the summer heat hits my face, I can barely remember my name and I need every single day of reprieve summer vacation provides.  Because thirteen short weeks later, I have to start the remembering again and it’s nice to forget that while I lounge poolside.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go remember what I forgot to put on this list.

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