It’s funny. Even though it doesn’t seem to really bother me during the year, when school start this month, I find I am so ready to throw structure out the window. I love not planning every meal and only shopping when I need to instead of doing the massive Sunday binge to buy enough to get me through packed lunches and dinners for most of the week.
In the summer I love the freedom to go with the flow, having breakfast when the kids are awake, which is pretty late, and just cooking what's in the fridge. It seems so easy without a steadfast schedule.
But now it’s back to reality. It’s now a lot of go, go, go leaving me little, if any, time to be spontaneous when everyone has someplace to be and needs to be fed. I know in time there will be a comfort to the routine and to being more organized. I think it’s the sadness of saying goodbye to the freedom of coming and going and the reduced stress of not waking up early, school schedules and homework.
Another thing that has to change is my boy's bed time. During the summer they are allowed to stay up as late as they can, sleep all day and it doesn’t bother me.
Now they will have to be in bed by 9:00 pm. I do make a big deal out of it, since Cedric had to wake up by 4 am and on the road by 5 am to be in school before 6:30. His school is pretty far, but it was near when we still live in our old house.
As a parents, you would probably agree that it is the most challenging time for our cash flow too. In fact, back-to-school spending ranks quite high, right next to spending for holidays and festive seasons, and can be quite an expensive annual tradition for larger families. Cedric and I just came from the mall today to purchase their school supplies. And as usual.everything is priced higher than it was the previous year.
Another expense is a hand phones which is now becoming a necessity communication tool and no longer a luxury item, especially for my children whom I need to know where they are at any given time. But they uses prepaid lines so I always remind them of the budget and make them stick to it.
What about you? Are you ready for back to school? Does the structure help you plan and get meals on the table easier or do you miss the carefree ways of summer?
10 comments:
The kids here soon break up for the summer! Amy can't wait to have Lottie home for 6 or 7 weeks!
I used to look forward to the holidays also. Although it was nice to go back in a routine.
Love xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
AAArgh, waking at 4a.m !!!! That's amazing starting school so early. I'm not a morning person, and love my sleep. A great post hun
xoxoxoxo
For me going back to school was going from working & studying very hard to real easy work. Don't get me wrong I was in the hardest academic stream in school. However I spent all my summers at Cadet Camp and my instuctors where all Army. We were up at 6:30 am bed at 10 pm. We did our own laundry and of course polished boots and brass. ( these things became social activities and I miss them ). We drilled, went on route marches, studied weapons and how to use them ( that is no longer done while we used machine guns and even rocket launchers on ocassion today Cadets are limited to bb guns. That happened some say only by coincidence when they became Co-ed. We studied citizenship and leadership. We learnt Camping, Hiking, field craft. Mountain & Glacier climbing. We studied advanced first aid and how to behave in emergencies. That training let me save more lives than I can even guess over my life.
Back to school was a breeze. Also because the Army had taught us the importance of learning and more effective ways to learn quickly and well my buddies and I did exceptionally well.
I put many of the study tips I picked up on my blog. They are near the bottom but are really useful. Though now retired at 55 ( since I was 51 ) I never stopped studying. Ask Odette I am trying to learn her language. At the moment I am also trying to learn Mandarin Chines which I am finding much more difficult. I am ok in French, ( I'm Canadian it's expected. ) Latin ( which I find really hard ), and my Japanese is fair to good.
My hobby is making costume jewelry from damaged scrap jewelry and have more than I have room for again. So anyone who wants some ( mostly necklaces ) can get my email address from Odette ask and I will send some.
I am thinking of moving back into my old trade as a hobby this time. Electronics, at one time when taking TV repair in 5 weeks a friend and I were grabing thrown out TV's on large garabage. ( in the city it was once a month. ). In a 6 week period he and I each got one and we gave away 6 to friends of my wife who were single mothers. All were 26 inch colour sets. the total cost to John and I under 16 dollars and it turned out we didn't need to use that part anyway. We did however need to confirm that was not the faulty part.
My brothers there are 3 and 2 are into electronics too. Encourage me. George is an Electronics techologist, Avionics technologist ( that's aircraft electronics ) and a Bio-Medical electronics engineering technologist. In other he works on anything used to work on or in the human body. If any of you are using an electronic means of controling your bladder he was on the team to first do that with sucess. He also wrote Canada's safety standards for medical lasers.
Rod is next and is an electronics technologist as well as a licensed industrial electrican, millwright and gas fitter.
I have five college diplomas and 3 rather limited trades. I am a rail vechicle mechanic for 3 separate types of systems. Subway ( underground or metro are other terms for it ) street car also know as railed trolley vehicles and Light Rapid Transit. Those worked under computer control so the line mechanic was more important but had not to much to do.
Only 4 out of the 10.000 at the company where qualified on all 3 systems. I also took supervisory courses and at the urging of the other emergency mechanics took a promotion to foreman. I didn't take well to not being to help hands on and instantly and that had a lot to do with me getting sick. I could only advise by radio and got the form of PTSD common to soldiers who come home but whose unit stays behind. You feel helpless because you are not there to help when you know you could make a difference. If you know any returned soldiers with this please support this in this as it is very hard on our self esteem.
CONTINUED
So as I said go to my blog useless information and I hope you will find it useful. I'm not an everyday blogger and the selection of articles are very varied. I called it useless information because all information is until you find a way to apply it. The study tips can easily make the difference between a C and an A. I suggest you go to the first articles and read in sequence.
What isn't there to edify is there to entertain. So feel free to have a laugh at my expense. I will take them as compliments. After laughter is a great gift. Knowlege is even greater.
Sid, you should write a book. You are both witty and informative!
xxx
We haven't broken up for summer yet, but we are desperate for Darla to start school because she's been ready for the past few months. When she finishes playschool, we'll keep her in some form of routine so that when we have to start getting up at 7:30am (right now it's 8am) to get her to school on time, we won't have much of a fight, also because she'll drive us crazy during those six weeks if she has no routine..
Thank you all for the comments. i wasn't able to respond to them as i still don't have a pc with an internet connection.
yes trace, sid is a witty writer and his post is full of interesting anecdotes.
hope others will be able to check it out too.
Somehow I can manage to cope with the seasons being reversed with UK and NZ... but the thought of your summer now being over fills me with confusion! I don;lt think it had ever occurred to me that it would be so different - which makes me feel very narrow minded! Guess it is like GMT - we are all somewhere on the clock, and the change of seasons....
Anyway - I loved the freedom of the holidays - but I also felt some pleasure in having a little time to do what I wanted again, without four kids coming with me :)
Fi,
our school calendar is different from yours or in the US. it starts in june and ends in march. summer is between march and may, hence student have time to frolic in the sun when classes breaks.
but the rainy season also starts in june and july and basically in my country the number of storms that come to visit, outnumbered the letters of the alphabet. thats why it had been proposed that classes be moved to september but until now it had not been acted upom by the DECS(dept. of education culture and sports).
four members in my family are teachers, and i find it such a noble job.
with love,
xoxoxox0
I'm with you, Odette. I hate the routine of school days.
Of course, I would never let my kiddos know that-it's too much juicy info for them to handle now, ha ha. My kids get out of school next week for summer break and I can not wait!
Getting my son awake every morning is like waking a hibernating bear. I swear he could sleep 20 hours straight if I let him!
Back to school is pure torture for me every year. Don't let it stress you out.
Hugs,
Mimi
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