It’s the middle of May. No mom needs a calendar to know this. She only needs a calendar to keep straight all of the stuff going on, including the stuff she’s going to miss because there’s too much going on.
Sure signs it’s the middle of May:
You take a brief moment of stolen time to look at Pinterest for ideas for end-of-the-year teacher gifts. After getting lost in a sea of impossible cuteness, you wake up to the realization that you’re never going to weave burlap or hand-stamp cards or glue crayons around a pencil holder or create a personalized ruler wreath. So you vow to pick up a few gift cards the next time you drive through Starbucks.
The kitchen table no longer affords space for eating. It’s covered with glue sticks, scraps of paper, random bits of cotton balls and ribbon. Somewhere, you’re certain, is the pair of scissors no one can find. Piled on top of that mess every afternoon are tattered, barely-held-together binders that you bought back in August. The binders for which you paid extra because they promised to be extra durable. The binders lied.
All the people in your house start to go to bed a little later than normal, as if they’re conditioning their bodies for the free-for-all that is summer break. Along with this, they all start to sleep in a little later in the mornings, creating increasing chaos as the last day of school draws nearer.
You’re washing, drying, folding and putting away twice as many clothes and towels than usual. Your people are still wearing school clothes and athletic clothes, plus they’re swimming as often as possible, creating piles of chlorine-soaked swimsuits and beach towels. They’re also dressing up for final recitals and end-of-year parties.
Your car/SUV/minivan becomes your family’s second home, offering shelter to and from games, programs, events, parties and spontaneous trips to the frozen yogurt shop. You fully expect that one day, perhaps in mid-June, you’ll clean out the vehicle and unload the springtime assemblage of books, flyers, graded papers, receipts, sunscreen bottles and granola bar wrappers.
Speaking of frozen yogurt, you might convince yourself that a tiny tub of frozen yogurt plus toppings is the equivalent of a healthy dinner, especially when fresh fruit is piled on top. (Ignore the bits of waffle cone.)
You temporarily forget your rocky relationship with Pinterest and scour the site for potluck ideas. You stare at beautifully lit photos of individual seven-layer Mexican dip, antipasto on a stick and dessert kebabs.
A few minutes later, you snap out of the DIY daze. You admit that you lack the patience for making 36 individual servings of anything. You chuck those ideas and buy pita chips, prepared hummus and olives and throw it all on a platter. Or maybe you purchase a package of cookies from the grocery store bakery, and serve straight from the plastic box.
There’s at least one event that you forget. Or an appointment for which you’re inexcusably late. Or there’s a Saturday afternoon that you mistakenly double-book, and now you’re desperate to figure out how to leave one event early and arrive beyond- fashionably late at the other.
You long for mid-June, when little is expected. When there’s no homework to check, no forms to initial. When you’re not packing lunches. When you’re not policing bedtimes.
Of course, by mid-July, you’ll be wishing for mid-August, when it all begins again. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For now, let’s embrace mid-May and all its frenetic, celebratory, mad-dash glory. And let’s pencil in a nap for when it’s all over.
Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. Email her at tyradamm@gmail.com.
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