Well it’s official. The bloom is off the rose. The tables have turned. The other shoe has dropped. There really aren’t enough metaphors to emphasize the unfortunate, yet expected arrival of the third week of school and its associated slump.
“You decided to change your shirt?” I innocently asked my high school senior as he was leaving for school today.
“What the hell Mom?” he barked. “Why do you have to be so critical?!! Get off my back!!!”
“Uh, huh?” I said to him perplexed by his reaction. “I just made a simple observation. It wasn’t a criticism.” As soon as the words exited my mouth I regretting saying them, much less making eye contact.
“Really Mom??!” he yelled. “Everything you say is a criticism!” He promptly stormed out, slamming the door with all of his might.
Insert Mom emoji with very, very confused expression, bird’s nest like hair, bags under the eyes, and toxic dragon coffee breath. Something like this:
Happy friggin’ Monday of the third week of school everyone.
Turns out I wasn’t alone. A couple of mom friends shared their stories of child meltdowns that morning as we left our workout class.
“I had to peel my sobbing daughter off my leg to get her to walk into middle school,” one mom explained. “What the heck? She was happy as a clam the last two weeks.”
“Mine too!” another mom chimed in. “My son was hysterical, begging me to let him stay home from school.”
It wasn’t long ago the back-to-school high was in the air. Eagerness abounded to go back-to-school clothes shopping, stock up on school supplies, and figure out delicious, semi-healthy lunchbox provisions. Our children posed for pictures on the first school day looking almost, dare I say, joyful about heading back to their various learning institutions.
Off they went out the door with clean backpacks, overly gelled new haircuts, gagging amounts of Old Spice deodorant and fresh energy to take on the new school year. Though still on the stay-up-too-late summer sleep schedule, they managed to get up early that first week and enthusiastically bounce out of the house to see their friends, compare class schedules and swap vacation stories.
That was then. This is now. And doors were slamming firmly enough to shake the house like Loma Prieta in 1989.
Just three short weeks into the school year, I now have grumpy zombies greeting me with grunts and moans in the morning. There’s already social media drama, “too much homework” and the daily, reoccurring complaint is a fill in the blank exercise.
“Please tell me why I have to learn _________ (the colonies, chemistry, etc.)?” they whine. “How exactly is that going to help me later in life?” Queue a small, I mean like microscopic violin playing … “All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall…”
Restraining myself from spewing a sarcastic comeback like sending kids to school is how parents torture children, I share more adult, logical reasoning.
“Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to,” I explained. “For example, I don’t think washing the dirty underwear that resides on your floor for weeks is improving my quality of life, but yet, it must be done.” Oops, a little sarcasm snuck out.
Here’s looking forward to weeks four, five and six when my all-knowing mom experience tells me I can start looking forward to the first illness of the school year, when the peaceful home I enjoyed for a whopping three weeks will soon be littered with crumpled, germ infested tissues and cough drop wrappers. The nasty family bug will be shared one week at a time by each of my three children, ending with me getting the worst of it probably around Halloween.
Experience also tells me the only soul to be spared by the back to school bug will be my husband. That’s okay with me though, because adding one more whiny, sick human to the mix might permanently send me to the dark side of the moon.
Note: My apologies to those of you born after 1975. Pink Floyd references are my jam.
