Leave it to my youngest to bring up back to school shopping. In July. While on vacation.
I guess one could praise Bear for her foresight and responsibility. Me? I fell back on Advanced Parenting 301. I said I didn’t want to think about it until August.
And dammit, here we are.
And, in honor of the first day of August…
“On Sunday, we got one of those fabulous automated calls of which I’m so incredibly fond. Sassy’s middle school principal had a seven-point audio presentation for us, and one of those seven points was the supply list. The supply list. I fuckin hate the supply list.”
This is way more than your typical school supply list rant. It is a laugh out loud funny look at our new academic demands, including commentary on elementary socialism and quantity overkill. Bwahahahaha!
In honor of winding up the school year (or having just finished, depending upon your luck), here’s a word from an epic school band parent.
“Phase I: Excitement and anticipation.
Whether you child plays woodwinds, brass, or percussion (like mine), you will be excited to attend this important event, potentially the performance of a lifetime. All year your child has been waking up early twice a week to get to band practice, instrument in tow. Finally you get to hear the fruits of his labor! You mark your calendar, rearrange appointments, and shuffle any competing extracurricular activities so that the whole family is available to be in attendance. How often are you treated to a night of FREE musical entertainment, after all?”
The 10 phases of attending a school band concert | Screaming into my Pillow
I know I’m not the only one doing a jig these days.
Parents, teachers, teaching assistants, club leaders, students, PTO, administration, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians…we’re all doing the happy dance. Some of us right out in the open, some when no one’s looking, but feet are tapping all over the county.
We are on the downhill slide to to summer. Can I get a hallelujah?
I know, I know…the end of the school year requires a frenetic pace, kind of like a mouse hopped up on amphetamines, but the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is so worth it. Down days, no homework, a change in plans. There may be schedules to keep in the summertime, but the idea of getting to basketball camp instead of rushing to homeroom is much more palatable.
It’s so close you can almost taste it. Are your dancing shoes ready?
My post as part of Colline’s Gratitude Project.
Teachers are da bomb, y’all. Da. Bomb.
They show up – every single day – no matter what. Budget cuts, political upheaval, poor working conditions. Kids from single parent homes, military homes, families living below the poverty line, families who’ve never caught sight of the poverty line. Kids with no support at home, either because the parents place a minimal value on education or they’re working two or three jobs to pay the bills.
Teachers show up for all of our babies, and they lay it on the line. Because that’s the only way to reach so many different kids in one classroom. Because no one goes into teaching for the salary and prestige.
Oh, these long, long days of elementary school…reading logs and flash cards. Homework folders, #2 pencils, and letter grades. Field days and cafeteria drama. Good times.
After enrolling as runny nosed midgets who can’t walk in a line, kids slowly adapt to school culture. They learn to take turns in the bathroom and use up all the paper towels. They figure out which kickballs are the good ones and how to get an extra turn on the tire swing at recess. They even gain an appreciation for certain cafeteria foods.
By the time kids move on to middle school they’ve morphed into nearly functioning humans.
If you visited the blog yesterday you know this has been an intense week. Frankly, I’ve downed a lot of Advil and done more than my fair share of stress eating, neither of which really fixed what ailed me. Beer didn’t help either. That’s what I get for trying to self-medicate.
Bee recently talked about what it’s like to live in redneckia and it made me laugh. Then it made me cringe. Then laugh again. Because sometimes the world is so freaking distressing, so overwhelmingly frustrating and infuriating, that my only coping mechanism is to find humor in the macabre. Which is certainly how I categorize the racist sh*t we’ve run into over the last three years or so.
You might want to skip this one if you’re looking for the typical lighthearted RFTM fare, or you could play whirl-a-post. I get it, sometimes you just want a fun read, so if that’s the case just go down the right hand side of your screen and click a tag or visit the Greatest Hits page. But don’t expect me to bring the snark today.
The KKK sucked it right out of me.
