it's the end of the summer and i feel...
Today is our last day of summer vacation before school starts. People. I am a hot mess. Seriously. Places I cried yesterday: the car, the store, the car, my house, the car, McDonald's, preschool, church, the car. And, for real, the feels are just too much.
I'm devastated that my sweet, smooshy cheeked, freckled 4 year old is going to start preschool tomorrow. I have no idea how he will ever survive without me there. I'm envisioning epicly sad goodbyes, the preschool authorities pulling me away from my smooshy, crying baby who obviously still needs me, our arms outstretched, or worse yet, his little head bopping into a classroom without so much as a wave goodbye to me. I should probably keep him home.
Honestly, though, I don't know if I can make it through one more day of summer vacation with these people. I know I say this a lot. I'm not trying to convince myself, I promise. It's just that it's true, but it's also true that they drive me carazay. I love my kids. Really. But I am so over summer. I had to stop at school today to drop something off and I asked if I could drop them off a day early! Apparently that's not allowed. Whatever. I've given thought to seeing if I could arrange respite care for this one last day of summer. Because I just don't think I can do it.
If Jen Hatmaker is the worst end of school year mom, then I'm just gonna go ahead and claim worst end of summer mom. About a week ago, I stopped being able to care about feeding them lunch. I know! I mean they're still eating, but I'm not living up to the lunch lady standards. Get a yogurt, find something to eat it with. I don't even care what it is. If you can make chopsticks work for you, go for it. And since all of our spoons seem to have disappeared, it might just have to be chopsticks or a straw or a rubber fishing lure sans the hook. Whatever.
I have given up trying to have summer fun entirely. I'm pretty sure I recited Miss Hannigan's entire Chrysler Building speech from Annie (the old one) today without even trying. I'm so over the memory making. Good grief, if we haven't made a summer memory yet, it's not gonna happen today. Go clean your room. Because, really? I took them all to buy shoes today. 8 kids. Shoes. Blowing a cool 200 bucks on shoes used to sound amazing. Now? Pure torture.
I think we need an end of summer mom salute. Some symbol of solidarity. Because I know I'm not alone. I saw you in TJ Maxx, in Walmart, trying to get the last of the clothes and supplies so that we could properly send our dear sweet children off to school tomorrow. I know how you only spent a paycheck or so on all those supplies, but how you're also the worst because you didn't get the right backpack and on top of that you picked out that totally lame dress and actually suggested that your poor persecuted daughter wear that atrocity to school. I mean seriously. And I wanted to let you know that I totally got it, that I wasn't judging you at all and that I'd just been silent dry crying in the Payless checkout line, but lost all composure in the parking lot and ugly cried right there loading shoes into my car. But that seemed like it would be awkward. We need a salute, a mom gang signal we can flash at each other. I've been thinking about this in my sleep deprived state. I was thinking maybe we keep chocolate candies in our purses and just chuck them at each other, but that could get dangerous...someone could lose an eye. Maybe we could flash the number of days left until school. But then this happened. You can thank me later. I ordered a cup of hot fudge at the McDonald's drive thru when I ordered my kids' dinner on the way to preschool orientation. Go ahead and judge me. I don't even care. Because you know what? When a woman in a 15 passenger van pulls up and asks for a cup of hot fudge, with a spoon...no, no ice cream, just the hot fudge, 40 nuggets, fries, a plain cheeseburger and 8 chocolate milks, they don't ask questions. I'm not even sure they charged me, bless their souls. They just handed it to me. And I ate it. Every last drop of it. Maybe this should be our symbol. Who's with me?
One more day. We can do this together.
