It’s countdown in the GreenHouse until school begins. Two days!
Through the years I’ve developed a few strategies for the last stretch. These hints just might help you hold on to the little bit of sanity remaining as you trudge for the finish line.
1. Meet your kids’ expressions of sadness that the summer is over with similar sentiments. You may not be grieving, but they are. Suppress that smile. Repress your eagerness to restore routine. It’s okay to have the countdown calendar for Christmas displayed on the refrigerator, but hide the countdown calendar till school begins in your closet.
2. Edit the grocery list and don’t cram the grocery cart as full this time. They’ll need food to pack their school lunch, but remember that the pantry goods won’t vanish as quickly since the grazers aren’t pacing the kitchen all day. (5 gallons of milk will be sufficient now instead of the summer 7, yes that’s 7 gallons a week.)
3. A couple of days ahead, tell them it’s time to shift the sleep rhythm so they’ll be ready for the early alarm on Monday. A little earlier to bed for everyone beginning now—for their sake of course. They don’t have to know that it’s because you’ve been dying of sleep deprivation and longing for early to bed all summer. They don’t have to know that they are resilient and will make the transition just fine; it’s your own body that you’re worried about.
4. Reduce those first day anxieties.
- Tell them that no one will notice the new zit prominently perched on the tip of their nose. They’ll have enough people tell them the truth by lunch on the first day.
- Express confidence that they can handle the AP class—you can tell them later that you’ve already found a tutor.
- Assure them that they are probably in better shape than they think and surely coach won’t work them too hard on the first day. (Go ahead and buy extra Tylenol instead of extra milk and put the ice packs in the freezer.)
5. When they return home the first day, have homemade chocolate chip cookies ready with a sad face that looks like you missed them all day. Don’t tell them that the cookies are left over from the victory party with the moms on the block. And don’t expect them to understand your sheer delight in the sweet silence in the house.
I share these tips with you now, because next year they’ll be obsolete in the GreenHouse. I’m already forgetting the unnerving feeling of surviving a summer with four little ones, probably because I’ve lost most of my mind along the way.
Next year we’ll move the last one into a dorm, and I’ll be eating chocolate chip cookies by myself. And the house will be way too silent.
Enjoy the last two days of summer. Enjoy the first day of school.
Enjoy each season while it lasts!
