Five Minute Warning

Hey, kids! This is your five minute warning!

Actually, it's more like your four weeks warning, unless you are a marching band kid, in which case it's more like a one week warning, because marching band camp is about to start.  That's right, kids. If there was something you wanted to do this summer, now would be the time to do it.  The clock is ticking!

A few days ago, I told the Son of Never Stops Eating that it was time to start figuring out if he needed anything to start school.  He stared at me for a second in a panic, and then ran out of the room, like I'd just told him that I'd sold his LEGO collection and the buyer was coming to pick them up.  I followed him into his bedroom, where he was attempting to hide in his closet. 

No, seriously, I said, do you need anything? Like new socks, or underwear?  What about school supplies?  How about shoes?  I bet you've outgrown your shoes again.  I don't want to find out on the first day of school that your shoes don't fit. 

Shoes are a sore subject with the Mom of No; several years ago the Teenager told me on Easter Sunday that her new Easter shoes were too tight and she'd told me in the store that they fit so that we would leave and go do something fun. Now, I'm always dubious about claims that the shoes are fine.

Mom! Stop it! he said, through the closet door.  Stop talking about school! It's summer! Kids don't want to talk about school in the summer! And they don't want to talk about socks!

You aren't looking forward to seeing all your friends again at school?  I said, through the door.

Mom, he sighed, with infinite adolescent weariness, I don't need to go to school to see my friends.  I Facetime them on my iPad.

So I admit I have ambivalent feelings myself about school starting.  All summer, I've been getting up early to go to work while the summer vacation slackers in my house have been sleeping in, so when school starts I can laugh as they groggily complain about how exhausting it is to have to get up early. 

However, school also means more work for me, the parent. I've been eyeballing the pile  of paperwork from last school year that I have yet to sort, recycle or shred.  Even before school starts the paperwork- both real and virtual- begins, and I still have stuff from last year.

Then school actually starts, and the offspring start wanting things like five-section spiral notebooks that must absolutely be red and can only be purchased at office supply stores during the full moon on months that don't start with the letters "A" or "S".  And then the fundraisers start, and it's time to start making nachos in the band concession stand again, and crumpled forms come home that must be filled out that night or horrible things will happen.

So listen up kids- you think you suffer.  You don't know about suffering.  Your parents are the ones suffering.  We're the ones forking out the big bucks because you outgrew the shoes we bought you five weeks ago, and driving around all over looking for some binder that you are very insistent about owning.  We're the ones filling out fourteen forms about allergies and trying to figure out which of our friends won't be too annoyed with us if we put them down as an emergency contact and then they actually get called.  Meanwhile, this subtle but increasingly insistent voice is whispering, enjoy it while you can; the day is coming when you won't be doing this anymore.

So anyway, kids, you still have about four weeks, unless you don't because you are in some kind of activity that starts early like band or dance team or football.  So enjoy all that free Pokémon Go time while you can, because those days of sleeping in are coming to an end.