Back to School a.k.a. Boohoo/Yahoo for Mommies

BTW – OMG: Whr did the smr go? I’m sure that any pre-pubescent offspring of ours would totally roll their eyes and tell me what was wrong – grammatically, technically, and, well, coolness factor rating within the first sentence. But the sentiment still remains – where DID the summer go?

Don’t get me wrong – I am THRILLED that all of my children returned to their institutes of education recently. They were becoming the bane of my and my nanny’s existences. Summer camps and vacations were over and the only thing left is to break things: limbs, extremities, my house, whatever… Even the thrill of destruction is waning thin here which is pretty scary.

My affirmation came to me the day before school started. We had a play-date with one of my children’s best buds. We made plans to meet at the pool for swimming and dinner. Unfortunately, yet another summer storm dropped in at the last minute that quashed our swimming plans. The mom was gracious enough to extend the invitation to all of my heathens to come over to play. Clearly, she had never seen the full crew in action… Anyway, we headed over. I was delightfully surprised at how well the quintuplet of kiddos played regardless of the age range so we mommies had a few minutes to talk amongst ourselves.

As the dinner hour approached, we debated our options and decided to haul everyone to the local pizza joint where our husbands would join us on their way home. Might I just say, and I speak solely for my family, that said husbands (i.e. mine) took their own sweet time arriving. Not only did I order for my entire bunch, receive said order, and begin eating; before my dearest daned to appear. Isn’t he cute?

Just for those of you who know how wonderful he really is and think I’m ripping him to shreds here, let me jump in with the twist. When all the kids were done with dinner, he and the other dad helped to orchestrate a 4 person head-to-head Nintendo DS/DSi Mario war. Again, here we are at a technological crossroad – what happened to the days where children were seen and not heard?

While most days I would prefer a return to that manner of dealing with children, particularly right after work when I walk in the door and everyone starts talking to me at once, this year I really would like my children, specifically oldest Christopher, to continue to talk. And maybe a little more.

You see, this year Christopher made the move, or rather “leap,” to middle school. He went from a school of about 350 children to one with 1300 pre-pubescent hormone-fluxing maniacs on wheels. All I know is that drop off and pick up is INSANE! No parking lot, no carpool, and bus rides for the very brave totally hamper any hope of normalcy. And here is the rub – Christopher saw the movie “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” which totally takes the new middle school experience to the lowest level. Thank you VERY much, Hollywood! Hopefully, this stage will expire soon…

However, for me, it was only this morning that the reality set in – Christopher is no longer a baby. He doesn’t “need” me for the mundane, everyday events. So, what am I supposed to do now? I have been dropping him off and picking him up a few blocks from school thanks to the craziness of such a large school. But this morning, it really hit me. What have I done? Am I subjecting my “baby” to the cruel realties of the real world way too soon? Or have I given him a gift of breaking out of the mold and allowing him a chance to recreate himself? Back to the initial paragraph – WTF? I know that what I do and how I respond will model the behavior that I want to foster in my children. So what do I do? I smile and hug him while I drop him off and then, as he leaves the car and I watch him disappear into a see of students, cry profusely as I drive off to work. I encourage him to break out of the comfort zone and find new friends.

As I was tucking him into bed tonight, oldest Christopher expressed his concern that he wasn’t ready for middle school. He decided that he wasn’t mature enough. We talked about what that meant and where he wanted to go. Everyday seems to bring about an improvement in his morale. But as his parent, isn’t it my job to protect him and stand up for his concerns? As I move to the bottom bunk to tuck in middle child Simon, I learn that he is mourning, and I mean really mourning, the fact that Christopher is no longer at the same school. He also misses his old teacher. And instead of talking to anyone about this, he has been a total maniac in and out of school. I feel like MacGyver talking to anyone that comes in contact with my child to ferret out ANY clues that could have explained his behaviour.

All I know, is that this is really hard. I just wish that someone would have given me the manual for child rearing BEFORE we had to put together this data dump of information. Aside from this massive developmental jump, we have to recognize the social growth of our children. More importantly, we have to recognize that as parents, we, too, suffer the growing pains even more exponentially than our children. Every memory of every event we ever experienced comes rushing back as we see our children go through it right in front of us. Their joys are our joys. Their hopes are our hopes. Their pains are our pains.

Tonight we got Alex in bed and Shelby is working the late shift. Both Christopher and Simon are piled in my bed with me watching “Back to the Future.” Regardless of the events of the past week, we laugh and talk and play. The problems melt away and things are the way they should be. For a moment in time, things are frozen, everyone is happy, and no one is growing up. While some may call this a morphed version of the “Peter Pan” syndrome, I say this is EXACTLY what I signed up for.