Back to School

Summer is over for my kids and so it ends for us as well.  Early alarms turn on showers and boys turn on the charm. "I don't want that for breakfast!"  "Why can't you make pancakes?" "Where's my juice?"  Once fed, the defience begins. "I am not wearing long pants!" "Why can't I wear flip-flops?"  "I will NOT change my underwear!"  Once at the school, Nichole and every other bedraggled parent drops the kids in the hopes that they will learn; Learn anything except how to use the "F" word and the "B" word or how to strut like a gangsta. We are allowed to hope.

For now at least, this is the routine.  I am off to work one of two jobs while Nichole spends her "free time" finishing the honey dos.  It would be easy to be jealous of her, what with her three weeks of vacation.  But I'm not.  I could never manage Mommy duties the way she does.  I am content to work. After all, I am not the one confined in the van with three fighting brothers.

You might expect that such a grand start would make for rough days in class, but its not true.  It seems they are capable of storing all that defiance away for a few hours, only to be brought forth again at home.  In less than 5 minutes they can turn a not-so tidy home into a disaster zone complete with overturned furniture, food crumbs and snack bags littering the floor.  No amount of threats or discipline will get them to clean up.  They take for granted it will disappear overnight and fresh snacks will be waiting tomorrow. 

What does await tomorrow?  Probably more of the same, at least until the new routine is established.  For my part?  I will wake in the morning, shower, spend a little quality time with my littlest, who loves to see me out the door before he bounces on top of Nichole to wake her and start "I don't wannas" all over again.