On my way home today, I was a bit frazzled. I was, as I do most days, thinking of what the heck to cook for dinner, and not wanting to deal with the inevitable nonstop bickering that always ensues the moment I pick up the kids and continues until I should have been asleep an hour ago.  So naturally, most nights,  I  stay up too late to listen to non bickering  silence which generally never happens so I go to bed too late, over tired and crabby…I generally these days wake up in the exact same order.

As I pulled to the stop sign I saw an orange sign and quickly read it.  My mind read “Minions operating ahead” and for a moment I thought the universe was trying to make me giggle instead of being anxious and wanting to hide…then I re-read it and saw “mowing operations ahead”.

Then I did giggle, cause wow! That’s my real brain messing with itself.  I prefer the “Minions operating ahead” cause if you’re a parent that sign would almost NEVER be wrong… and to be honest, I saw no “mowers” so I conclude that real sign lied.. my imaginary sign would always be true.

That’s all… 

So, here we are, less than a month until school starts again and moms across the country are secretly doing the hand-jive/macarena/Tootsie roll in anticipation.  Am I the only backwards mom on the planet? Back to school does not=back to sanity for this mom.  Back to school means homework (which means more whining), it means checking folders, signing slips, remembering this, remembering–wandering ramblings–did you catch that in my tag line?  I don’t do remembering very well.

The carefree days of summer are coming to an end, and in this house the only ones jumping for joy that school is coming are the two kids who should be ugghing and boohooing.  Don’t get me wrong, having kids who love going to school is pretty amazing.  I love that they love it!  They love to learn, to see their friends, and see what new adventures await them.  I love to see the excitement, and for the first week I’ll be supermom.  Juggling folders and signing slips will be my new life venture-and I’ll do so flawlessly…for about a week, maybe two tops.  Then I will forget a day, I’ll misplace the slip, or forget to send a note that they need to go to xyz after school.  The kids will want a cold lunch, at 8:27pm the night before, when our fridge consists of milk, leftover tacos, one questionable apple, a piece of string cheese and some brown lettuce (not some newfangled fancy form of greens..the regular old leaf lettuce that didn’t get used up in time and is now slimy brown and stinky). From that point on the excitement of the new school year will be gone for me and I’ll just be surfing pinterest for memory enhancers, or wine racks.