Back to school
It’s that time of year again; another summer is end ing and my mornings will be filled with earlier alarms, packing lunches and hollering, “Get your shoes on or we’ll be late!” By George, it’ll be Christmas before we know it. It’s always bittersweet when the kids go back to school. They have so much fun playing with their friends and going to family reunions each summer. I cherish the days we get to spend with them at these ages while they still think we’re cool and interesting. That being said, come on August, I cannot handle one more argument about whose turn it is on the Xbox or one more chorus of, “I’m bored!” I try to tell them that when I told Nana I was bored during the summer she usually put a pickaxe in my hand and had me
digging boulders up out of the garden until sundown, but they are unmoved by these tales. I guess it would be more frightening if we had a garden. Or a pickaxe. Maybe that’s for the best; maybe kids need to learn how to be bored. I spent plenty of my summers sitting in a circle in lawn chairs under a shade tree with my friends. One summer my brother and cousin sat at a round coffee table bouncing a ball back and forth all day. Our heads would have exploded to have tried to fathom the gadgets these kids have access to now. Of course, complain as I do, come next week I’ll miss it. The house will be too quiet on my days off. I’ll enjoy a few days of watching war movies in peace, but before long I will wish they were here with me during the day. I’ll long for lunch companions and seeing the newest work of art our oldest has created. I’ll long for the slow starts to the day and standing in the driveway making sure they make it to their friend’s house safely. Until I hear, “I’m bored” when they’re off for fall break. Then I’m sending them to a boarding school.
