"Back to School" will Come, Eventually

It's September, and like every other year around this time, my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are flooded with back-to-school photos.  All the stores advertise the specials and savings on school supplies, clothes, electronics and just about everything else that might be remotely related to going to school.  Unfortunately, this does not include diapers, formula, or wine.

Truth is, I have no idea about this whole back to school thing.  We aren't to that season of life yet.  But, there are days I find myself slightly jealous of the mom's who get to send the babes off to school for a few hours everyday.  The thoughts of "how many more years?"  "Can it just be time already?"  "I wonder if Catholic school would take him, even though he doesn't use a toilet yet?" thoughts fleet in and out of my brain.  People would tell me "don't wish the baby/toddler years away, they go so quickly!"  But they don't.  Sure, in 15 years I will send my baby boy to his first day of school for the last time and at that point I will wonder where all the time has gone.  Not today.  Not right now.  Not in the trenches of toddlerhood.  Some days I consider preschool and daycare programs for him, but most of those in our area cost more than my college courses ever did.  If the word "tuition" is used on a preschool information sheet, I just stop reading right there.

Some days I'm jealous.  Some days I'm worn to the bone. Some days I look at the school bus and wish I was waiting to pickup my blue-eyed, blonde, enthusiastic little boy and asking what his day was like. And some days we play in the pool.  I know I am not alone in those thoughts of "please, just go to school already!"  But we have good days so much more than tough ones.  We have days where we can go play in the pool all afternoon without any obligations.  We have days where we can have our picnics at noon on the patio furniture.  We can extend our summer into fall for as long as the weather decides to be blazing hot.  We can watch a movie in the heat of the day.  We can eat ice cream for lunch and have popcorn whenever we like.  Best of all, I can hug him whenever I want to.  Okay let me rephrase that; I can force him to hug me whenever I want a hug from him!  There will be mornings when we rush to get into the car or to the bus stop.  But for right now, the biggest hurry in the morning is when he announces that he "is going to get the kniiiivvvvveeeeesssss!" (don't worry, he cannot access the knives, he just thinks he ought to be a chef).  There will come days when I have to shake a teen boy from bed in the morning, and those days I will still hear that happy little voice in my head adamantly yelling "GET UP, MOM! IT'S MY TV TIME!!"  Because God forbid we EVER miss Mickey Mouse at 6 A.M.  On second thought, maybe that will be my approach for waking him later on in life.

Sometimes I am so ready to be a school mom, a sports mom, a 4-H mom that I loose track of the mom I need to be right now.  The time will come for all of the rest of that.  For now, I can just be the mom who plays in the pool with a giggly little boy.  The mom who let's him have ice cream for lunch, because that's what I want too.  The mom who forces five more minutes in bed before getting up for the day.  The mom who watches Wall-E 23,989,432 times a week.  The mom who wonders who the heck chooses what the Mousekatools will be today.  The mom of a sweet little boy, the world's sweetest big brother, and most enthusiastic, stubborn, eager, loving child I have ever met.  I have to take a step back and remind myself that, even though it certainly does not feel like it right now, especially on our tough days, that this time of innocence, curiosity, unbridled love, and hilarious mispronunciations will end and the next chapter of our life story will begin.


And some days, we play in the pool, while other kids are sitting in class, we are splashing, and spraying the hose, and laughing.

And, for the days that I do wish he was just in school already, there is wine and a blow up pool ($39.95 at Sam's Club, folks).