I've Got the End of School Crazies

It’s finally here, the end of the school year. Those lazy days are just around the corner, but the few weeks of wrapping up school before summer starts are enough to have me longing for the quiet of January.

School plays. End of year parties. Field trips. Buying teachers’ gifts. Field Day. Variety Show. Help me, I can’t breathe.

The kids get a break: Homework ends, testing is over, parties abound. Parents, meanwhile, run around like headless chickens while their kids wonder why they’re so stressed. Could it be because our young ones are already acting like it’s summer and staying up until 9 pm since it’s too light out to sleep, so those sacred evening hours we have to ourselves are spent chasing them back upstairs?

I just want to tell my sleepless offspring: “Fine, I’ll jump into your bed. You finish painting the scenery for your school play and wrap all the teachers’ gifts, then clean the kitchen and see if you can hit the pillow before midnight. `Kay?”

These last two weeks are chuck full of special events, which would be fine if I wasn’t already overcommitted beyond belief. Is book club really tonight? What book is it again? Am I really hosting Bunco tomorrow night, which entails not only preparing munchies and drinks but actually straightening up my house? And, since the pool’s open and I find myself in a bathing suit more often than I’d like, I’m supposed to be working out every single day … or so I tell myself as I sit in my chaise lounge with the towel draped strategically over my legs.

Okay, you read this and think to yourself – Lady, get a real job! With real worries! Well, funny you should mention that, since I was laid off last month and (theoretically at least) am job hunting. According to my outplacement coach, I should be spending at least eight hours a day building a network, dusting off my resume, checking job boards and researching target companies.

By my calculations, if I spend 8 hours a day looking for a job, that leaves me negative 3 hours for sleep.

Meanwhile, I’m barely able to emotionally appreciate that my youngest daughter is “graduating” from preschool. I’m too busy running around to stop and realize what this means. But I bet it all hits me at the celebration the school is planning for the kindergarten-bound kids, where in a sea of proud, camera-wielding parents, I’ll start wailing like a wounded animal. Not good.

I love summer. Really, I should live in the Caribbean, because warm weather makes me less grumpy. I even like, get this, humidity. But the work it’s taking me to get to those precious summer days is about to kill me. Let’s hope when they arrive I can relax and enjoy them, not to mention my daughters who share my love for summer, and make it extra sweet.

Cara Garretson spends lazy summer days on her front porch in Gaithersburg, MD.