Cake For Breakfast

When everyone’s kids start back to school, and I get to feeling “schooled out”, which, when I used that phrase with a friend of mine, she laughed and said, YOU? Schooled out?? But that’s what it feels like this time of year, and then usually mid-November the “sad” hits. I know what it is and why, but every year I forget about it in my blissful though busy summers and then get smacked in the head with it come August/September. This always sounds like I’m being really critical and almost mean about other parents’ choices, and that’s not the intention, but come this time of year, it gets really hard to listen to people talk about schools and programs and plans. It’s not that I regret or feel bad about our schooling choices, to the very contrary actually, it’s that I feel bad for other people’s kids. Which is where the criticizing feeling might come from.

I don’t for one second wish the kids could go to school…true, I joke at times that I could have four kids in school this year and I’d have no idea what to do with all my free time except clean my house, but I’m not serious in the least. I’d trade clean floors for miserable, sad, heartbroken kids. Not an even trade in my book. Hell I could send them tomorrow…um, next Tuesday if I wanted, but I don’t at all.

I get the hype, I do. I get the excitement other parents are dealing with right now at this time of year.  I remember it well. The excitement, the anticipation, the worry if you did the wrong thing by sending them this year instead of next  year and so on…and EVERYONE does it, and the school parents far far outweigh the non-schooling parents and you can start to understand why I feel schooled out. Come mid-November there’s always parents with little ones (and bigger ones) having problems in school and then that always makes me sad.

What’s funny, out of the four kids, I only know the “grade” level that two of them would be in this fall, and only because both girls have friends their age entering those grades. Sophia would/could be in Kindergarten this fall; Azura would be in grade 7 (YIKES!!!). I honestly have no idea what grade the boys would be going into. I think maybe because I’m not fully keeping up with the Joneses so to speak, it doesn’t hit me as hard as it possibly could.

This time of year is when I turn to the unschooling boards and email lists more and look for like-minded parents even if they school their children. It balances out the schooling for the first month or so that school is back. Besides, come October, most parents aren’t as caught up in the first few weeks of school.

And hey, we have a busy week ahead of us with the last week of summer day camp coming up this coming week, then our 3rd (or 4th, I can’t remember) annual Not Back To School day when we go to the fair…and there’s still weeks at the lake, and apple picking and so on….we don’t stop living our free lives because it’s September and some people are heading back to school.

Yes, it’s that time of year again everywhere. Kids are heading back to school (or will be soon), parents are buying school supplies and taking their last few days of family vacations, getting ready to go back to the grindstones. I admit, I ADORE this time of year, because I love school supply shopping! I love office supply stores too…. it’s a sickness…. but with the kids not attending “school”, there’s no “school” supply shopping. And, to be honest, here in town the schools ask that parents not buy supplies (like markers etc) and instead give a cheque to the school to buy bulk supplies. Which sucks the fun out of it. So the two years the kids went to school, we didn’t even get to buy supplies

What we do instead…is we take advantage of all the amazing sales and stock up and buy new stuff. Like funky pencils and papers and crayons and paints. Like school supply shopping, but better because we can use them when we want and how we want.

I also realized that back-to-school shopping heralds a change of season heading into my favourite time of the year, so it’s one of those inborn (almost) things. When the back-to-school stuff is sold, all the fall/Halloween stuff comes out and the air seems cooler and crisper and even if fall is months away, it just SEEMS closer. And, since I love fall, I love this time of year even without school. School isn’t what makes it fun, it’s the feeling of this time of year, so that’s what I’m trying to focus on. It’s almost like a new beginning. People should make their New Year’s resolutions in September

So, we’ve written our “not back to school” shopping list, and we’ll be goofy and silly and watch the kids pick out stuff they can’t wait to use…and love every minute of it.

There’s actually been a reason I haven’t been posting too much. Other than the ‘it’s just too damn hot out’ reason. Things have been fairly stressful on the job front here. Andrew finished his project he was working on at work in June, and they had no work for him when he was done. So, he’s been waiting since June for a new project, while NOT getting paid. So I’ve been insanely stressed out, as I’m the one that deals with the finances. HOWEVER, it looks like he’ll be going to Quebec for a month starting next week to do a contract, worth 2.5 times what he’d make in the same period at his “job” so he’s going to take it. Not that it makes me less stressed, as he’s not paid yet and we don’t know if he’ll get paid weekly, daily, at the end of it, or what. BUT, it’s all comped, so hotel and food are paid/reimbursed, and it’s good pay. So that’s been some of it.

The kids have been insanely busy, and it’s been weird just having Sophia home all day every day with no other kids. Max and Sophia contracted strep (Max from day camp, Sophia from him) Friday, so you can imagine how fun that was on a day where it hit 108F here. They’re fine now (and really were never “sick” since we caught it so fast) but ew. Summer camp though has been GREAT and they’re loving it. All three of them are having loads of fun, and Sophia’s totally thrilled with the fact they’re not home so she can play xbox without having to wait for turns. She’s totally hooked on Wallace and Gromit and she’s very one-track minded trying to beat it. She’ll beat it first too since she’s way ahead of the rest of them. It’s so weird for us, because until a couple of weeks ago (or less) she had zero interest in playing video/computer games. She’d watch etc, but she wouldn’t play at all. So it’s weird, but really neat too to see the developmental leap that took.

Once we catch up on the money and the kids are done camp (which runs all this month) I think I’m going to take the Labour Day weekend and just veg. Running four kids all day every day all month without being able to leave one home to do it, WHEW!

Before I shut my computer off for the day because we’re supposed to have a high of 108F and we have no a/c other than a dinky one-room one in the kitchen. So anything “hot” is going off in a few. But I wanted to pop a couple of links up of pictures One is from Azura’s first sleep-away camp experience; Tim Horton’s Camp. The second is last weekend at the lake.

STAY COOL EVERYONE!!!!

Tim Horton’s Camp ~ July 23-25

Lake ~ July 27-29