1.  High school is no joke. Homework on day two? Welcome to the real world, son. I know it’s a bit of a shock to the system.

2.  Some arguments over when to leave for school will never ever die.

3.  Though my patience for them will.

4.  Despite all big talk to the contrary, wearing exactly the right outfit – even jeans and a sweatshirt – is a really big deal requiring multiple consultations.

5.  You gotta admire how BrightSide keeps chiming in with his opinion no matter how many times Bear ignores it.

6.  I’m guessing he might not yet have a handle on the middle school girl top/jeans/shoes requirements since it seems they differ wildly from your everyday fashion rules.

7.  Apparently we’re gonna have the “you’re Out Of Your Ever Loving Mind if you think I’m completing these school forms at 10:00 at night when you’ve had all freaking day to give them to me” conversation every single year.

8.  They get one pass each August for this nonsense with a promise that every time thereafter gets a “hate it for ya, bring ’em back after school tomorrow.”

9.  Even on week one I hold to the piss poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine philosophy.

10.  It’s remarkable how these kids keep being surprised by this. Like it’s new. Like I wasn’t exactly like this last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. Good grief.

11.  You can’t delete part of a group text. Even when you accidentally send an inappropriate joke to a thread that includes, say, the kids. Whoops.

12.  Not like it’s anything they haven’t heard before but still.

13.  The animals sleep for days. It’s like they’ve been running a marathon all summer and finally get to rest. Which would make sense if we actually, you know, ran them over the summer. It makes less sense after weeks of lazy napping.

14.  Finding the one smoke alarm battery emitting that godawful beep traumatizing Phoebe is like playing real life Battleship. Except this version involves teetering at the top of stepladders while my dog has a nervous breakdown in the basement.

15.  We weren’t the only evil parents who made their kids get up early(ish) and go to bed at a decent time last week in the vain hope it would ease transition to school hours.

16.  But we’re still the worst parents with the most annoying parenting style ever. You know, in case I was getting a big head or something.

17.  Plus refusing to allow Snapchat is severely hindering our kids’ social lives. Cry me a river.

18.  There are few things as embarrassing as clipping a curb doing the pickup line at the high school.

19.  This freshman course load is a wee bit intimidating. Thank God for teachers’ office hours. Biology and geometry are but faint, faint memories in this brain of mine.

20.  It never fails. No matter how carefully I search, no matter how much I cross-check supplies, after we finish school shopping I inevitably find some secret stash in the house. Apparently I’ve been preparing for a run on loose leaf paper and highlighters.