A New Year, Lots to Celebrate in 2013

It's 2013 and I can proudly say that I've made no resolutions, although I have made a few, um, suggestions for myself for the new year.

As I skimmed through my brand, spankin' new 2013 calendar -- trying to ignore that nagging, superstitious feeling that anything with the number 13 is inherently unlucky -- and was taken aback when I realized several things:

I completely forgot to book my kids' annual doctor's appointments last year. Whoops.

My eldest two kids are not only going into high school this fall, but are going to turn 15 this summer.

Our "puppy" will turn 4 this spring.

Easter is very early this year.

Oh, and 2013 will mark the year that I become a published novelist. Seriously. Remember that book I talked about earlier, Mortified: A Novel About Oversharing? Well, it's going to be published this spring. More deets on this later . . .

After I marked down all the birthdays and anniversaries on the calendar, I thought about 2012 and what promises the new year holds and came up with several things we've got goin' on in the plus column:

-- I made it through Christmas without getting the swine flu or a stomach bug, both of which have sullied previous celebrations of Yuletide splendor.

-- The Youngest Boy did NOT freak out when he discovered that there was NOT a bow-and-arrow set beneath the Christmas tree. Katniss, he is not.

-- The older two went to a boy-girl New Year's Eve party while The Spouse, The Youngest Boy and I ate Chinese food (the adults had the take-out, the kid had leftover pizza . . . because I've been a lazy chef as of late. No judging!) and watched the second Lord of the Rings film, The Two Towers, because we wanted to have a quiet, family evening, save for our partying teens.

-- Our ice rink (pictured above) is actually operational! Longtime Picket Fence Post readers know that the subject of our backyard ice rink has been a source of tremendous angst for The Spouse, with the exception of one, spectacular year (the same year I got swine flu for Christmas, apparently because I'd been a wicked girl during the prior 12 months). Our history when it comes to this brand of home recreation is, shall we say, checkered, thus my joy at the fact that kids are actually SKATING on the rink into which The Spouse has invested so much money time.

-- The Spouse and I are both gainfully employed on a full-time basis. I'm currently on winter break from the university where I teach and am busily working on new syllabi for the spring semester. I'm very enthused about a course I'm developing.

Things in the minus column:

-- I haven't attended a yoga class in months. It was either sleep or yoga. I couldn't do both, so yoga got the shaft. And the kids have noticed. The Spouse has noticed. How did they notice, you might ask, other than by assessing muscle tone? Because when I'm actively practicing yoga I will experience moments, or stretches of zen-like, "yo dude" calm. That zen thing, my friends, has been noticeably absent, my patience practically nonexistent. Piling on a stress-filled Christmas season didn't help. Therefore, it is VITAL that I find a yoga class that fits into my crazy schedule. Soon!

-- I haven't had a real date with my husband since we celebrated our 20th anniversary in the beginning of November. (We did go to see Lincoln a few weeks ago while the kids saw a different movie with friends, but since the kids were in another theater and it was in the middle of the day, I don't consider that a date.) This situation, like the yoga one, also needs to be rectified.

Overall, the Picket Fence Post family is heading into 2013 with hope and eagerness, and I, personally, plan to laugh like a maniac when I gaze at our family calendar and discover that all five of us are scheduled  for something at the same time in different locations. Or maybe I'll just cancel all of our appointments and have us all go ice skating in our yard.

American Parenting Requires 'Redefining Fun,' Being Okay with Missing Stuff

The New York Times' parenting blogger had it right when she wrote that, in order for American parents to have "fun" during their non-working hours, they need to redefine the word as we're seeing large hunks of our time commandeered by our children's extracurricular activities. Naming travel hockey tournaments, "Family Art Night" at school and team parties as activities in which her family partakes, KJ Dell'Antonia wrote, "This is what we signed up for, with our big, boisterous family."

She pointed to a recent essay by a mother who started raising her children in Europe but, upon moving to the United States, was gob-smacked to discover that the contemporary American parenting culture is completely child-centered. (The writer, Jennifer Conlin was commenting on the "French parents are better" conversation we've been having lately in the wake of the pro-Parisian parenting book Bringing Up Bebe.)

"Now our entire adult life revolves around the children's activities," Conlin wrote in the New York Times. As she detailed a crazy-busy set of weekends when her children were participating in musicals, softball, ensemble competitions, a forensics tournament (?!), baseball and a Science Olympiad, Conlin said, "It's easier to preach benign parenting from one's pretty perch in Paris than it is to import those traits to the trenches of America."

However Dell'Antonia said this all-in brand of contemporary parenting is "as fun as we make it" and again reminds us -- chastises us actually -- that "this . . . is what we have signed up for." I, respectfully, disagree. I didn't sign up for having my weekends sucked up in the vortex of children's activities. I didn't dictate (a la the Tiger Mom) what activities the Picket Fence Post children should or shouldn't do other than to limit them to one sport per season. I've allowed them to choose their activities and then tried to shoehorn those activities into a family life with two working parents, two 13-year-olds, a 10-year-old and a dog. But the shoehorning can be messy business.

My life is currently one big logistical nightmare as all three of my children play sports (soccer, hockey, basketball, lacrosse), two are in bands (one plays in three bands), one is on the Student Council, one belongs to a monthly book club, two take additional once-weekly math classes and one is going to start reffing soccer this spring. And that doesn't include the events they have at school like Colonial Days, talent shows, Art Nights, etc.

My biggest fear, aside from forgetting to bring a kid to some practice or event (The Spouse and I mistakenly missed a tryout session for our son's 2012/13 hockey team . . . whoops!), is that I'll accidentally strand someone somewhere. Leave no kid behind, that's my number one priority.

However there are many occasions when, if I can't get a kid to an activity because, shockingly enough, The Spouse and I actually have something of our own that conflicts with their stuff or we happen to want to do something other than a kid-centric activity. (For example, we had scheduled a St. Patrick's Day dinner at another family's home when a hockey game was rescheduled, with little notice, for that night. We went to the dinner.) The children just have to be okay with missing that activity from time to time. Our family, we tell them, is comprised of five people and sometimes, Mom and Dad or the family unit as a whole, comes first. We can't do everything, we tell them, and if they miss 25 percent of some activity, well, that's the price of being part of a team, the family team. Contrary to Dell'Antonia's assertion, I'm not at all content to surrender all my free time to trying to pretend that a picnic on the sidelines of a kids' soccer game is as good as enjoying a sparkling conversation with The Spouse about politics and current events at a nice restaurant that doesn't have paper placemats. We need date nights every once and a while.

It has taken quite some time for me to be okay with our approach, to not be wracked with guilt if we miss something, to not feel badly that I'm not enjoying all the child-centered events as much as other parents claim they do. I've had to try not to beat myself up if I mistakenly forget something. I can only do what I can do, as long as I don't leave a kid behind. (Have I mentioned that I'm paranoid that I'll do that?)

That being said, I still get resentful when a coach or the head of a particular activity acts as though his or her gig is the only one on a child's plate and exacts a punishment on the child should he or she be late or miss an activity because sometimes a parent simply can't get the kid there. Frankly, it's impossible for me to divide myself into thirds and deliver everyone everywhere simultaneously. I likewise don't cotton to attempts to lay guilt upon parents for missing events when there are a freakin' bazillion of them; they're not all litmus tests on our fitness and attentiveness as mothers and fathers.

I realize, as parents of older children have told me repeatedly, that this insanely, jam-packed period of my life has an expiration date. Sooner than I'd like to think, all three kids will be off to college and the house will suddenly be eerily quiet. I won't be worrying about leaving anyone behind on a soccer field because they will have left the home to start a new chapter of their lives. I'm trying to keep all of this in mind when I caffeinatealways choose the kid thing. I can't put my life on the shelf until the kids are in college. There's got to be some kind of balance . . . and a whole lotta coffee

Out of Tragedy, a Stirring, Powerful Discovery: Community Matters

For several days I was perpetually choked up, felt as though there was a lump in the middle of my throat after learning that a young boy – who was friends with my oldest son – had suddenly passed away.

But as I forged on, pushing through the heavy sadness and unmooring shock of the news, I realized that there’s power in something about which we don’t place nearly enough emphasis these days: The power of being a physically present in a community, not just being a part of an amorphous, sometimes antiseptic community online.

The horrific news about the 12-year-old boy’s passing circulated throughout my town in dribs and drabs. Initially, cryptic, mass, automated phone calls were made from the schools to students’ homes telling parents to check their e-mail for an "important" message. After reading the stunning e-mail, some parents went old school and called one another on the telephone, then quickly turned to local web sites and Facebook to share their collective grief as they prepared for their crestfallen children to come home from school and melt into their arms. No one could quite believe that a young, seemingly healthy seventh grader could really be gone. He just couldn’t be. It made no sense.

He had just been playing basketball the night before, some said. He’d been online with friends the day before too, added another. He seemed fine at school yesterday . . . this didn’t compute for anyone, not for the students or their parents who fearfully eyed their own children wondering, “What if?”, not for the educators who cared for these children or for the church community which spiritually embraced the boy’s devastated family.

I read and re-read the note from the middle school not quite believing its contents. There was no way that a child – a polite, smart, talented shining light about whom no one had a bad word – as young as he was could’ve gone to bed and then passed away because of complications due to a seizure. There was no way that this was happening to his nice family, particularly to his mother, about whom the most frequently invoked adjective when her name came up in conversation around town was “sweet."

Parents literally clung to their children, holed up in their homes as after-school activities and practices had been cancelled. At first, we all marinated in our grief from behind our computer screens or on our phones, in an electronic isolation of sorts, sharing despondence, warm memories and effusive compliments about the boy and his bereaved family online. People, particularly the children, texted one another, exchanging sentiments as simple as, “I am so sad” that conveyed an ocean of heartbreak.

The next day, however, the community began to stir, to rise from the ashes. In school hallways throughout town and at the regional high school, students donned a commemorative color – green – in honor of the child who was universally well liked and respected. One of the boy’s classmates labored to make hundreds of green ribbons and distributed them to willing takers. It was a sea of green, people said, a sea that coalesced around that vacant space where the lost soul used to be because that’s all that the people wearing green could do, because they couldn’t bring him back.

Then, as the children and their parent-coaches eventually resumed their sports activities, this boy’s name became a clarion call from indoor soccer arenas to youth basketball courts, a rallying cry, a cause: He will not be forgotten. His easy smile, his talents, his kindness would guide them through, no matter what it said on the scoreboard. He will help us go forward.

Parents bought green socks and handed them out to players in his memory. Kids texted their teammates suggesting that they don green T-shirts under their uniforms. Green duct tape was adhered to the fronts of basketball jerseys, and, band-like, around the upper arms of coaches and the parents in the stands who teared up every, single, time a parent from an opposing team asked what was up with all the green. Girls took makeup pencils and decorated their cheeks and their hands with their classmate’s initials and shouted, “Go Green!” at the beginning and the end of their games. This is for him, they said. And, for the first time since I could remember in my very athletically competitive town, it didn’t matter who won, who scored, who fouled. All that mattered was that we were all together. We were one. And our hearts were broken.

People came out of their homes, out from behind computers and cell phones and spent time with one another in person. Children hung out and played video games together or watched the Patriots’ game in groups, drawing comfort from merely being in one another’s presence while their parents embraced and tried to console one another, remarking about how rare it is these days for them to just ditch their packed schedules and hang out together. Parent after parent said that this grab-you-by-the-lapels moment which shakes you to your core has taught them that, no matter how insanely busy they are, time with friends, with one another, in the flesh, is important. Checking in on Facebook, while comforting and a useful source of information, was not enough. Not by a long shot.

“I’m really glad we live here,” my daughter said to me the other day. “People really care about one another.”

Out of this tragedy, my children, as well as almost every person with whom I’ve spoken, seemed to have stumbled upon something basic, something that we all too often take for granted in this era of instant digital communications and over-scheduled lives filled with the busy-ness of child-rearing: Being together matters. Community matters. Everything cannot be done via electronic or cellular forms of communication.

This sudden, grief-stricken coming together, this recognition of the importance of just being together as a community was one final gift from a boy whose short life was a gift to all of us who were lucky enough to meet him.

So How's the Christmas Zen Thing Going? Tenuously . . .

I’m trying, fighting against the odds, to maintain my grip on this Christmas Zen thing to which I vowed to adhere in order to keep myself from going crazy during the harried holiday season in my interfaith home. But life is not making it easy, nor are the folks on the radio, TV and elsewhere who delight in telling us how few “shopping days” there are left before Christmas arrives. It’s stressing the hell out of me and I really wish they’d just knock it off.

Not only that, but it feels as though a million little things keep coming at us, affording me precious little time to breathe never mind enjoy the season, stuff like shows for the school bands the boys are in (one which required me to run to stores the night before and buy The Eldest Boy a black dress shirt), a book swap at The Youngest Boy’s school (I forgot to sign and send in the paper to give him permission to participate), the Secret Santa in The Eldest Boy’s French class (he just asked me to take him out to buy something for his person), the specific gifts I’m supposed to get for the Giving Tree at church and submit (wrapped) on Sunday, making sure not to forget to attend one of my niece’s performances of The Nutcracker before it’s too late, and getting Max’s ridiculously long -- now partially knotted – Havanese/Wheaten Terrier hair cut (his regular groomer has been ill and we’ve been putting it off).

No, The Spouse and I haven’t started Christmas shopping for our family yet, though we’ve had rushed conversations in dribs and drabs over the phone or just before we’re about to pass out from exhaustion at night about what we think we should get the Picket Fence Post Posse. I think we’re going to have to open a bottle of wine, boot up our laptops and plop onto the sofa together after the kids go to bed on Saturday night and get this shopping done online (and be prepared to pay extra for expedited shipping). At least I won’t have to battle traffic or wait in lines.

And while our personalized Christmas and Hanukkah photo cards have been delivered to the house, I haven’t yet sat down to address the cards and have everyone sign them. (I thought it would add a touch of humanity to have each member of the Picket Fence Post family sign the cards. I have a feeling I’m going to live to regret that wholesome decision.)

No, we haven’t gotten our tree yet.

And while last week I was wistfully pondering all the different kinds of Christmas cookies I wanted to bake – trying to keep that happy Christmas spirit flourishing – there is NO TIME for that right now. I hope I’ll find a free afternoon closer to Christmas to make them. I'll remain optimistic.

However this is the context in which I’m now operating: The other day The Spouse had meetings (of course he did) and I had to: Drive the boys to a math class, drive The Girl to her hoop practice, rush to the store to buy a black shirt for The Eldest Boy's concert and a gift for the Giving Tree, pick up the boys, drop The Youngest Boy off at a friend’s house so another mom could drive him to hockey practice, pick up The Girl from practice and drive her to the library for her book club, drive The Eldest Boy to his hoop practice and pick The Youngest Boy up from hockey practice. (The other two kids got rides home with others.) Oh, and I had a deadline to meet that night. I’ve got another day like that ahead of me next week when The Spouse will be out at some work event.

Nevertheless, I’m forcing myself to be fa-la-la cheery and Christmas-y as all get out. I’ve got a strained smile on my face, but this sunny disposition shall disappear with shocking speed if 1) You remind me of how many shopping days are left and b) I hear the odious “Dominick the Christmas Donkey” song. God do I loathe that song.

Huzzah! My Rain Dance Worked! Practices & Games Canceled!

When I saw that weather forecasters were predicting several consecutive days of rain this week in the Boston area, I was secretly thrilled. No, not because I have a twisted desire to live in dreary, Seattle-like weather where I actually want to sit in front of the fireplace (in May!) in order to warm myself up or feel the need to wrap myself in a blanket while working at my desk.

Why have I been so chipper about all this lousy, unspringlike, inclement weather (in the 40s-50s)? Because I’m a desperate soccer/baseball mom who is delighted to enjoy a break from racing the three Picket Fence Post kids around to soccer practices, soccer evaluations (for placement on next year's teams), baseball practices and baseball games. (It’s supposed to be nice over the weekend – when The Spouse is around to help pitch in on the schlepping all over town – so the weekend games should go on as planned. And I’m okay with that.)

What a relief it has been to “only” have to hound the kids about doing their homework assignments and about helping out with chores like emptying the dishwasher and feeding Max while I have the opportunity to finish my work AND make a decent meal that wasn’t whipped together on the fly (cereal, soup, PB&J) in between drop offs and pick ups.

Sometimes it’s nice to have the weather force you to take a step back from the madness of the spring youth sports season -- and from being the children's indentured servant chauffeur -- and take a breather.

Image credit: Planet Mom T-shirts.

Looking at the Kids' Dizzying Schedules & Trying to be All Zen

Youth hockey season’s not yet over – The Youngest Boy’s team is still in the playoffs – and the schedules for The Girl’s and The Eldest Boy’s soccer teams are already rolling in. We haven’t yet been given the practice/game schedule for The Youngest Boy’s baseball team, but I'm sure those games and practices will be slated for dreadfully inconvenient, overscheduled times.

Plus The Eldest Boy has upcoming band events, there’s a middle school science fair and a grade school invention convention.

*deep breath*

There are already conflicts galore with all these schedules – some on an ongoing basis, like one practice at the same time as another kid’s math extracurricular activity – and The Spouse and I are trying to figure out ways to make everything work.

Last fall, I thought my head was going explode, particularly in light of The Youngest Boy’s hockey league where there were no regular practices time and games/practices could be scheduled with little to no notice (like 12 hours). I spent a lot of time being pretty ticked off because my schedule was spinning out of control, hijacked.

And then I started taking yoga again after a very long hiatus,cut back on the caffeine and started getting more sleep. I tried hard to be okay with missing the occasional things, with having shortcut dinners (pancakes, scrambled eggs or sandwiches) when there wasn’t time to make something all Martha Stewart-y, with the fact that this crazy, hectic period of time will not last forever. Instead of wasting all of this negative energy by raging about insane schedules and games that are slated for smack-dab in the middle of church or which overlap with other events, I decided to just say, as pithy as it may seem, “It is what it is,” and try not to get all worked up about it.

Easier said than done.

As the kids’ sports and academic project schedules are ramping back up and the kitchen whiteboard is laden with stuff we're supposed to do, I’m having trouble trying to maintain that Zen mode.

*more deep breaths while trying not to hyperventilate*

Three for Thursday: Rotting Jack-o-Lanterns, Homework Monitoring & Hockey Schedules

Rotting Jack-o-Lanterns

Once again, I have the scariest doorstep in the neighborhood.

Why? Because The Spouse and I have left the three jack-o-lanterns that the kids carved on Columbus Day weekend on the front steps. Now they’re moldy, collapsing piles of mush. So the question is, do I leave them on the doorstep to "scare" people on Halloween or toss 'em out to prevent the spreading of the mold-infested mush all over my doorstep? (I'm inclined to go with option number two.)

Homework Monitor: Helicopter Parenting or Responsible Parenting?

He knew that he had to finish the hat. The vocabulary word hat to be precise. Each member of my 9-year-old’s class was assigned a vocabulary word and was asked to create a hat which represented the meaning of the word without using other words.

For days I’ve been nagging The Youngest Boy about his hat – had he thought about what he’d like to do, had he pulled together the necessary material, etc. “You don’t want to wait until the last minute,” I told him as he'd tell me it wasn’t due until Friday.

When he presented me with his hat yesterday, I suggested that he needed to use something sturdier than Scotch tape to hold up this big piece of cardboard he wanted to attach to a hat. I offered to help him attach an elastic string to it later, later meaning today.

Then, as we were pulling out of the driveway this morning, with 10 minutes to spare before he was supposed to walk through the school door, The Youngest Boy started shouting that his hat wasn’t due on Friday, it was due TODAY. And because I was the one who suggested that he ditch the tape and replace it with an elastic but hadn’t yet done so, all of this was my fault.

I will admit that I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory when I reacted angrily to all of this. Luckily, The Spouse was still in the house, so I told The Youngest Boy to get out of the car and have his father assist him while I drove the other two kids to school so they wouldn’t be late.

Here’s my question: Where’s the line between being a helicopter parent (who is doing her offspring no favors by doing everything for them, coddling them, instead of making them learn to do things for themselves, always coming to the rescue) and being a responsible parent who’s trying to teach her kids, as they gain the maturity, how to be responsible for themselves?

Three for Thursday: Spaghetti Tacos, No Time for Life, No Cheers for Skimpy Uniforms

Image credit: NYT

 Item #1: Spaghetti Tacos

The New York Times ran a feature story this week about a joke from a children's television comedy, iCarly, that has become, unironically, an alleged reality: Spaghetti tacos:

“On an episode of the hit Nickelodeon series iCarly, the lead character’s eccentric older brother, Spencer, makes dinner one night. Glimpsed on screen, the dish consists of red-sauce-coated pasta stuffed into hard taco shells. What could be more unappealing?

. . . That punch line has now become part of American children’s cuisine, fostering a legion of imitators and improvisers across the country. Spurred on by reruns, Internet traffic, slumber parties and simple old-fashioned word of mouth among children, spaghetti tacos are all the rage.”

To crib a bit from Saturday Night Live: Really New York Times? Really? Parents – aided and abetted by “mom blogs and cooking web sites" – are honestly serving their children carbs inside of carbs with a coating of tomato sauce? Really? It looks like something you see on those gross surgery scenes from Grey's Anatomy.

Have any of you heard of this trend? The Picket Fence Post kids watch iCarly, but I'd never heard of spaghetti tacos before reading the story, nor had I fielded any requests to serve spaghetti tacos. You?



Image credit: NBC

 Item #2: No Time for a Life

Maybe I should just write a weekly segment: What happened on the NBC show Parenthood this week? The show has been so on the mark about issues facing today's parents that I sometimes wonder if the writers have planted spy cameras in my house.

This week, the issue of family overscheduling was highlighted via the characters of Adam and Kristina Braverman. They, along with the at-home dad character Joel, were the stand-ins for parents who don't have enough time to have lives of their own -- to enjoy their own hobbies, to connect with their spouse -- because of the fact that the expectations of modern day parents dictates that they be hyper-involved in all areas of their children's lives, to enroll them in myriad activities and ultra-competitive sports, and to sacrifice their lives so that they can take their kids to all their activities and oversee/correct homework assignments. It’s, on the surface, a small story, not having time for a date night, but it goes right to the heart of discontent, at least in my house.

While I find myself struggling not to be negative or resentful about the sheer quantity of the time-demands placed upon our family by our children’s many activities, I cannot escape the fact that I frequently find myself mourning that I don't have the time I crave and need for myself and for my marriage. Time with my friends? Forget about it. Our schedule is almost entirely devoted to work and kids' stuff, with a bit of volunteer work tossed into the mix. (That last hour-and-change after the kids have gone to bed in the evening and the dishes have been cleaned, doesn't count as grown-up time in my book because The Spouse and/or I are frequently doing work or we're both falling asleep.)

You can read my review of Parenthood, including how the at-home dad of a kindergartner freaked out because he said he has no life outside of taking care of her and the house, here. At least when I'm watching the show, I don't feel like I'm the only one trying to figure out a way to deal with these issues without losing my mind.

Me & The Mom from 'The Middle:' Trying to Get (And Stay) Organized for School

Image credit: ABC

While watching The Middle’s season premiere this week I felt as though I was a kindred spirit with the lead character, Frankie Heck, played by Patricia Heaton.

After a disastrous first day of school in the Heck household – everyone got up late, the grade-school-aged boy’s backpack still had a rotting sandwich from the previous school year inside, the kids (including the teen boy who was still in his boxers but was holding his clothes in his hand) missed the bus – Frankie vowed to change things when it came to school, “get in front" of the things they needed to do” for once in their lives.

The following morning, Frankie got up early and prepared a hot breakfast of bacon and eggs (which seriously confused her kids because she never does that), got and set an alarm for her teenage son so he could get himself up, bought her youngest a new backpack, baked a freezer full of brownies so she’d be prepared for a year’s worth of school bake sales, filled out all school paperwork immediately, dashed off a check for her daughter’s cross country team sweatshirt right away and met with her youngest son’s teacher on day three of school to give her a head’s up on his idiosyncratic behavior.

I’ve been trying to do a similar thing since the Picket Fence Post kids have returned to school. Thus far, I’ve filled out and returned every form immediately (or at least I’ve handed them to the kids, whether they’ve submitted them is anyone’s guess). I’ve grabbed my BlackBerry and the family calendar in our kitchen and recorded the dates and times for things like school picture day, curriculum nights and parental information nights so as to not inadvertently miss them. I’ve been writing the day’s events on our white board in the kitchen (next to the fridge and the family calendar) the evening beforehand after the kids are in bed so everyone can see what’s on the agenda and plan accordingly.

After a disastrous first day of school in the Heck household – everyone got up late, the grade-school-aged boy’s backpack still had a rotting sandwich from the previous school year inside, the kids (even the teen boy in boxers, holding his clothes in his hand) missed the bus – Frankie vowed to change things when it came to school, “get in front of them” for once.

The following morning, Frankie got up early and prepared a hot breakfast of bacon and eggs (which seriously confused her kids because she never does that), got and set an alarm for her teenage son so he could get himself up, bought her youngest a new backpack, baked a freezer full of brownies so she’d be prepared for a year’s worth of school bake sales, filled out all school paperwork immediately, dashed off a check for her daughter’s cross country team sweatshirt right away and met with her youngest son’s teacher on day three of school to give her a head’s up on his idiosyncratic behavior.

I’ve been trying to do a similar thing since the Picket Fence Post kids have returned to school. Thus far, I’ve filled out and returned every form immediately (or at least I’ve handed them to the kids, whether they’ve submitted them is anyone’s guess). I’ve grabbed my BlackBerry and the family calendar in our kitchen and recorded the dates and times for things like school picture day, curriculum nights and parental information nights so as to not inadvertently miss them. I’ve been writing the day’s events on our white board the evening beforehand after the kids are in bed so everyone can see what’s on the agenda and plan accordingly.

Then I went to two different back-to-school nights and learned that one kid had reading assignments he was already supposed to be doing at home but hadn’t been. Teachers referred to some textbooks that the students had been given, assuming that we parents knew all about them. (I know that my kids had to – and promptly did – put covers on their textbooks. The Spouse helped them turn paper grocery bags into book covers the night the books came home, but I personally didn’t had a chance to comb through all their books. I did peek at a social studies text though.)

The two boys are in their school bands but neither child can seem to remember exactly when they’re supposed to go to school early and when they’re supposed to bring their instruments to school. Given that The Youngest Boy has a giant xylophone in a rolling case, it’s kind of important to know when he’s expected to lug it there. Though I’m really big on getting the kids to be responsible for their own things and assignments – how will they learn if they don’t make mistakes? – I must admit I’ve sent e-mails to their band teachers attempting to clear the confusion so the kids don’t spring a “Hey mom you need to drive me to school!” announcement while I’m still in my PJs and they have to leave immediately.

For the fictional Frankie Heck on The Middle, her valiant attempts to “get in front” of all the school madness backfired, went kaflooey and she gave up. Hopefully, that won’t be my fate too. I’m still doggedly hanging on the illusion that I can keep on top of this school stuff. Then again, it’s only September.

Image credit: ABC.