Back to School?

Boy, am I glad my years of mothering school-aged children have ended.

Recently, our daughter, Tracy, and her family traveled from Michigan to spend a week with us. Every morning, prior to pool time, our granddaughter, Jenna, spent time completing a 25-page homework packet.

School hasn’t started and Jenna has homework. This packet was sent home at the end last school year. Jenna’s soon to be fifth grade teacher put out a reminder call to all her student’s parents that the packet would be due the first day of school.

I thought “How many parents’ said, ‘What packet’, or, ‘Can you send me another one?” I mentally raised my hand knowing I would have been one of those parents.

I remember the summer reading lists, but summer homework?

Watching Tracy and her husband, Zeke work with Jenna to have this packet ready for the first day of school, started me think about the many First Days of School I have been through.

Four kids X 12 years = 48 First Days of School. That’s one day short of seven weeks of “Firsts”. Seven weeks!

Remember all the clothes, notebooks, pencil boxes, lunches, gym clothes, padlocks, and backpacks purchased over the years just to be ready for a First Day?

Remember the carpools? The one inevitable mom who managed to NEVER drive on her day for the entire school year?

The years the kids rode a school bus always had me wondering if any of the other moms would notice I was wearing a sweatshirt over pajama bottoms as I schlepped to the bus stop coffee cup in hand, hair pulled into a hasty ponytail.

There was always one mom, standing at the bus stop, dressed in her perfect jogging suit, water bottle in hand, stretching for her morning run which commenced as soon as the bus pulled away from the curb. Pffsssttt!

And then I remembered the best First Day of School.

It took place while my youngest, Matt, was still in school. We had moved into a neighborhood heavily weighted with small, testosterone males units all approximately the same age.

That summer, interaction with all the moms was high as the boys ran through the neighborhood, paintball guns in hand, playing until the street lights came on.

Towards the end of that summer, one of the moms, issued invitations to a Back to School Brunch.

The first day of school a dozen of us met at the bus stop, coffee cups and/or water bottles in hand.

The boys loaded on the bus, the bus pulled away, and all the moms waved good-bye. As the bus rounded the corner we trooped to the neighbor’s for brunch.

Breakfast was a beautifully laid out buffet complete with flowers, crystal and champagne.

We celebrated the end of summer and the kids’ return to school. We celebrated surviving a summer of prepubescent teenage boys who one minute were crawling through backyards and a moment later answering a phone call from a madly giggling girl who had gotten up her nerve to call.

We laughed. We rejoiced. And The Back to School Brunch became an annual event until the boys graduated from high school.

While I don’t miss getting ready for a First Day of School, I sure do miss that Back to School Brunch . . . and the champagne!!