Oh Right. The First Few Weeks of School Are Terrible.

I’ve been counting down the days until school started again since about mid-July.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my kids. I love summer break. I love not setting alarms, not knowing what day it is, and occasionally eating dinner at 8:45 because everyone is basically living like a retired person in Boca Raton.

By August, I am ready for everyone to have somewhere to be.

So when school started last Tuesday, I was doing a little happy dance. Back to routine! Back to structure! Back to someone else asking my children to use their brains for seven consecutive hours!

And then I remembered one very important thing:

The first few weeks of school absolutely suck.

How do I forget this every year?

Apparently sometime around July 4th my brain quietly deleted Back-to-School Season to make room for pool snacks.

Because I had completely erased the memory of the car drop-off line, which is less of a transportation system and more of a daily test of Christian character.

DIDN’T YOU WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO THEY SENT OUT LAST NIGHT, PHIL?!

THAT LANE IS FOR BUSES NOW.

YOU ARE CLOGGING EVERYTHING UP.

THIS IS HOW SOCIETY COLLAPSES.

MOVE YOUR KIA, PHIL.

I also forgot about lunch.

My girls have somehow lost all lunch-making abilities over the summer, along with the ability to tell me what food they would actually like to eat.

“What do you want me to buy for lunches?”

“I don’t know.”

“Turkey?”

“No.”

“Ham?”

“No.”

“Wraps?”

“Maybe.”

“Fruit?”

“Sure.”

I buy fruit.

Three days later: “We literally have nothing to eat.”

Thank you. Your complaint has been forwarded to the person who asked you what to buy three days ago.

Then come the forms.

So. Many. Forms.

Emergency contacts. Medical information. Technology agreements. Parking forms. Athletic forms. Handbooks we are instructed to “review,” which, let’s be honest, means scroll violently to the bottom and click I ACCEPT with the confidence of a woman who has never read the Terms and Conditions and is not about to break her streak now.

And while you’re doing that, someone needs a physical.

Someone needs a new calculator.

Someone needs a VERY SPECIFIC KIND OF BINDER, and no, Mom, none of the 11 binders already in this house count. Those are garbage now.

Then sports start.

Congratulations! Your child made the team!

Wonderful!

Please attend a mandatory parent meeting Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. and bring $300.

This is merely the cover charge.

There will be apparel.

There will be team bonding.

There will be “optional” donations with mandatory energy.

There will, at some point, be a SignUpGenius asking you to bring 48 bananas to a location 45 minutes from your house.

Meanwhile, the entire family is trying to remember how mornings work.

Alarm clocks are going off at hours reserved for farmers and airport employees.

People are standing in the kitchen at 6:42 a.m. staring at one another like survivors of a maritime disaster.

No one can find the shirt they REALLY wanted to wear today.

Someone needs a water bottle.

Someone’s Chromebook is at 7 percent.

I am moving through the house yelling supportive things like “WE HAVE TO LEAVE” while carrying a cup of coffee I have already reheated twice and have yet to drink.

Then the homework starts.

Nothing is quite as humbling as your child casually asking, “Mom, do you remember how to do this?” and handing you a page of calculus.

Sweetheart, no.

I swear I was smart once.

There was a period of my life when I knew things. I took tests. I wrote papers. I once had opinions about economic policies.

Those files have been deleted.

My brain needed the storage space for four people’s dental appointments, the Netflix password, and which child casually mentioned needing index cards while I was merging onto the interstate three days ago.

And then there are the evenings.

One needs to be picked up at 3:20.

The other at 6:00.

Dinner, if we insist on the quaint family ritual of eating together, will now happen at 7:30 p.m.—borderline French and more cosmopolitan than my digestive system can handle.

And because apparently we enjoy danger, let’s also throw in a little Driver’s Ed.

Nothing says “back-to-school season” like watching someone you gave birth to enter a roundabout while you grip the “oh crap” handle and mentally review your estate plan.

At this point, all normal household maintenance has been suspended.

Need your teeth cleaned?

See you in October.

Haircut?

Grow it out.

Phone screen cracked?

Learn to love it.

If the refrigerator stops working, we may simply have to move.

There is no margin. There are only calendars.

The school calendar. The sports calendar. The family calendar. The calendar I apparently forgot existed.

Plus one group text with 14 parents where I am scrolling upward like an archaeologist trying to determine where I’m supposed to be tonight.

And the cruelest part is that I ASKED FOR THIS.

Six weeks ago I was wandering around my house muttering, “These children need to go back to school.”

Well.

Congratulations, Past Self.

You got your wish.

Enjoy your 5:45 alarm, your 48 bananas, and Venmoing $37 to a woman named Jen whose last name you do not know.

Of course I’m thrilled they’re back. I love watching them learn, grow, make friends and do hard things. I just forgot that I would apparently also be doing hard things.

The first few weeks of school make me want to get into a boat, point it toward the horizon and start rowing.

No phone.
No forms.
No SignUpGenius.
No one asking me where their volleyball shorts are.

Just me and the sea.

Phil can have my spot in the drop-off line.