Final Weeks to School's End

These next few weeks are hectic for us Mothers. With less than a month to go before  says bye bye to us for the summer, Moms are heading toward the finish line with all the gusto of a triathlete to ensure our children will not go without. God forbid they should be left cupcake-less at that end-of-the-year party or need our presence when other Mothers are doing that secret planter painting in the hall for the teacher gift.

Face it. There will always be Mothers who are more available than you, volunteer more, bake better stuff and have children's end-of-the-year party games ready to go at all times. Some Mothers work, some have big hobbies and some Mothers actually need to be at the school as much as possible, due to loneliness. Detaching from one’s child is a difficult task and not for the faint of heart.

When my oldest was in preschool, I used to stand at the door's one-way window at least once a day, watching him interact with the children, silently praying he didn't miss me, when really, I should have been praying for my own survival without him. The teachers at  had me properly pegged as one of those helicopter, micro-managing Mothers, as they watched my tears silently roll down that one-way window. I would have given anything to volunteer in that classroom, just to get in that door, but even if their policy had been different, it would've been a big mistake to let me in. I was too needy back then. My son’s second year of preschool was better and I stayed away more.

When my daughter went to her preschool, I volunteered for everything allowable, including dressing up like the Easter Bunny for the egg hunt, just to get in that classroom to see how she was doing without me. In those days I juggled driving back and forth to my son's elementary school with the preschool. Once I found the PTSA and the opportunities to volunteer, I was in heaven. They needed me and recognized my compulsion to be involved in my children's education. Those ladies understood how it felt to drop a kid off at a school and not see him until 3:30. It felt wrong! They'd developed a specific organization for Mothers like us - The PTSA. So, driving back and forth between schools, I grabbed any opportunity I could to get in that coveted classroom and accompany my children on their educational journey. I took on the school’s art program (they are all parent-run and PTSA funded now) which placed me at the school every day and in my son's class at least once a month. I did Read Naturally in the hall once a week, being sure to pull out my own child for reading checks. I doled out hot dogs at socials, did clerical work for the teachers, set up chairs for assemblies and every time a request came through my email for help with anything, I tried to answer first. “Pick me, Pick me, Pick me,” my overly-zealous self would say.

Field Trips were a source of worry when the chaperones were chosen by lottery, leaving the rest of us driving our own cars behind the buses to meet our children at the zoo as a non-chaperone but still welcome to watch our children and talk to them. (Can you hear the helicopter blades?) Overnight trips to Pioneer Farms? Sure. I'll sleep in a barn with sixty other children on a hard floor in eighty-nine degree weather, crammed in with other snoring parents, just so I can experience the old timey life with my child. You want someone to organize the Valentine's Day party. I'm in! Sew costumes for the play. Sure!

It's exhausting, to say the least. I had about six years of that and finally started to taper off on my volunteering schedule when my son went to junior high. They need so few of us over there and even on those days when I work the health room, those sick kids come in only to phone home to get a ride. Drying tears from playground accidents are a thing of the past at the Junior High level, where boo-boos are called abrasions and lacerations. School dances need volunteers but your child is so embarrassed to have you there, you're sworn to avoid eye contact and take a posting on the far side of the room, just in case anyone recognizes you as their parent.

I've actually taken this year off from school volunteering. Well, as much as any Mother can. I do the health room at the Junior High and if my daughter's teacher is stuck for someone, I go in to pick up the slack, but this year I didn't even go to the Volunteer Appreciation Tea Party because I didn't do enough to even deserve a cup of tea. In an effort to pace myself, I pulled back from the mania of trying to do everything and be everywhere to avoid my child coming home to talk about other mothers who had the time and skill to help in the classroom that day. I plan to be back in action next year when my daughter is in fourth grade because I only have another two years before she heads off to what will then be called Middle School.

And so, as we make the race to the end this month ladies, I caution you to pace yourselves. We have all summer with our children, don't burn out early. Buy those cupcakes (or at least buy a cake mix and pre-made icing), enjoy the music recitals from whatever seats you manage to get when you arrive five minutes early, get the teacher a gift card instead of spending hours having the kids make a cuckoo clock or an autographed quilt, allow your husband to be the single attendee at the evening activities, let another parent chaperone the trip to the arboretum, take deep breaths and look forward to the summer in Sammamish. (A season I like to call Sammamer). Repeat after me “I don’t have to do everything. I am a good mother as I am.” Now say that over and over until the last day of school when a different kind of crazy begins.