My mother is on her away to my house right now, and I have no idea why. It could entirely be a simple parental visit - which I hope it is - but those don't happen very often. Something else usually has to be stirring for her to make the trek out here to the woods on a Saturday morning.
These woods, by the way, are already starting to close in on me. Summer has drawn to a wet, cold end, and it's only four short days now until that yellow bus comes flying down the road at seven in the morning. I think I am supposed to feel sad about this. I guess I do feel a little bit sad about it. I have done my best to cram as much family activity as possible into the summer months and to savor the Tornadoes as they are at this moment in time. I do feel a twinge of something blue about them each starting yet another new grade. All this growing up business I am seeing really does conjure up a mixed bag of emotions. True all of that, yes, and yet the thing that I am feeling the most over the past few days? A bit claustrophobic.
The fact of the matter is that a big, fat, monotonous hamster wheel is looming over my head right now. And I am not ready for it. In a practical sense I guess I am ready, but mentally I'm screaming a little bit in my head. Because once that school bus comes flying by, and the homework starts, and the gymnastics practice schedule kicks off, and the birthday parties start lining up, it's Bye Bye, breezy world with your convenient restaurants and fun things to do and Hello, cluttered house in the woods. Hello, cooking dinner every night. Hello, inflexible routine. Hello, collapsing in the laundry pile at nine o'clock at night. Ugh, I am already exhausted.
So these are the kinds of things rattling around in my head today, as I sit here waiting for my mother to arrive. And I am telling you, blogosphere, because these are things that I cannot tell my mother, or at least if I tell her I cannot expect that she will understand. Because I didn't grow up this way. Did you? My parents were not slaves to my extra curricular life, or my social calendar. And yet every parent that I know is staring down the same barrel of hands-on parenting insanity right now. And every one that I have spoken to this week has made it a point to mention that their own parents did not put themselves through this. Did they start handing out crazy pills in the maternity ward or something? Why do we do this to ourselves?
I forgot to mention that last night I somehow got roped into allowing both of the Tornadoes to have sleepover guests, and that those guests are still here. I think there is a game of hide and seek going on at the moment. That's my guess as to why my closet door has opened and closed about four billion times while I wrote this, anyway. I wonder, if I joined in and volunteered to hide, could I pay them not to seek me?
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3 comments:
Although my brother and I were into extracurricular activities, it was never like what I see going on today. And if we had to wait a 1/2 hour for my dad to pick us up because he had to work late, we just had to wait that 1/2 hour. It's insane what hoops parents put themselves through these days. It's also no wonder that kids come into my classroom expecting that I will do the same.
my foiks came to my 2 piano recitals. Oh, and my Bat Mitzvah. But you know, they kind of HAD to come to that.
it's crazy how things have changed. My parents came to baseball games if their schedules were clear, but I biked or walked to the games & made sure I was there on time. I couldn't imagine letting my kids bike to their own sporting events today.
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