As the school year draws to a close, my kids are feeling the anticipation. Indeed, they are almost giddy. I am too. Those first joyful nine seconds of having the kids home for three months are some of the best of the year for me.
One of the many joys of summer is not having to get everyone up, dressed, breakfasted, packed, and out of the house at an absurd hour. By this time of the school year, we are barely dragging into the building when the bell rings. Our excuses for lateness are as varied as spring weather on the high plains.
Here are a few:
- We need to finish coloring an ice cream stick with a permanent marker. Even the edges.
- The items we laid out for share-and-tell last evening have transformed during the night into unworthy, pieces of human excrement, and we must deliberate for 50 minutes choosing a different two-dollar piece of plastic junk to take.
- The oatmeal that was hot and fresh 45 minutes ago is cold, and we have to reheat it, only to discover that it is mushy now, and we need to make a fresh bowl and eat a half a bite before we leave.
- There is a bug on the floor of the bathroom.
- We suddenly decide to pack a lunch of a ham and cheese sub sandwich, even though the school menu reveals that’s exactly what the school cooks are preparing as well.
- We want to go play with Juneau because she looks lonely, even though we haven’t paid a bit of attention to the poor dog in three weeks.
- We have an itch on the very bottom of our foot, and we have to take off our shoe and sock and scratch it.
- When putting our shoe back on, we break one of the laces and need to hobble it together to get through the day.
- We forgot that it was “Pajama Day” at school, and we got all the way dressed, only to realize we needed to put our pajamas back on.
- We thought it was “Pajama Day,” only to realize when looking at the school calendar that “PJ Day” is actually tomorrow, so we have to rush back upstairs and change into real clothes.
We celebrated Clementine’s kindergarten graduation the other day. Back when I moved on from kindergarten, we didn’t have such a big shindig. I’m sure our teacher had her own private happy dance, but as far as I know, there wasn’t a community party. I say, “as far as I know,” because it’s possible that my parents decided that another drive to town was frivolous and skipped it. I wouldn’t blame them. Heck, I came pretty close to deciding that another two-block trek to the school was frivolous and skipping Clem’s. No; I’m kidding. I appreciate the community’s efforts toward spoiling my kids.
Now that summer is kicking off, though, I’m sure that the circadian rhythms of my kids will suddenly sync. This is always nice, because I do love watching a good summer sunrise at 5:30 a.m. on a day I could’ve slept in. Occasionally, I hear about meteor showers, and without those cute little alarm clocks waking me while it’s still dark, I think I’d miss most of those during June, July, and August.
And another thing that’s awesome about summer is this: no packing school lunches! Heck, I don’t even need to check the school menus to see if the scheduled lunch is something my kids won’t like. Since I’m in charge of meal planning, I am 100% sure they’ll abhor whatever I make. Despite my pre-kids certainty that I would never make special meals for picky kids, I know I’ll get to make grilled cheese for one, spaghetti for another, and sliced apples with peanut butter for a third.
Go ahead and throw some well-aimed stones on the social media pages for Little Spouse, but as long as you’re chatting it up, at least leave an easy kid-friendly recipe or two!
Tune in to High Plains Public Radio at 8:35 this Sunday morning during Weekend Edition. Leave your snippy comments (and recipes) at Little Spouse at facebook.com/littlespouseontheprairie or on Twitter at SpouseOnThePrairie@ValerieKuchera.
