“Mommy, can we start school?”

It seemed an innocent question enough. I knew someone who’d already started school. And the babies were bored. What harm could it do?

So I set out to start school two weeks ago.

First I had to hunt down all the curriculum. Problem: Imani’s 5th grade math book still hadn’t resurfaced. I had had to reorder. Good news: The new book arrived ca week 2. Problem: neither the answer book nor the test guide had arrived yet. So I gave Imani a 4th grade fact sheet. Fail.

Problem: The leap from Kindergarten to first grade means MUCH MORE busywork. Esteban’s school went from being a cute little play session here and there that was easily made up to an all-day work session, one of us ending in tears. Fail.

Joy reads much better this year, and cheerfully dove into her school work without me. Problem: she still needs me to help her understand assignments and tests. We started the second week reviewing week one. Fail.

Problem: it was still hot out, and we still had another fruit-picking trip to plan, and everyday I was pushing and waiting for school to be done so I could get on with my life, the whole while screaming inside that I was not ready for this. . .

So, we did a week of school, then a Monday. And as I was a hysterical maniac, I decided to stop school until I could mentally and physically prepare for it. I thought that the little children wanted to start school because they were bored. I bought more crafts, and started the origami and needlepoint craft sessions.

I took a personal day last week. That was very restorative.

I’m looking forward to starting afresh on Tuesday. Are you ready for school?