Four. More. Days.

I had every intention of writing a humorous blog post today about the end of the school year and how as far as I'm concerned it cannot get here too soon. But then Amy shared this great post by Jen Hatmaker that explains it so much better than I could. And I am so glad I am not alone here. There are so many things she wrote about that I agree with.

I would feel really bad if I was the only mama alive who gave up on homework about two months ago. Technically, I gave up on homework about the third week that Jake brought home the dreaded night writing journal. I mean sixty minutes of sitting at the kitchen table with my child while he struggles to write "I love my crabe" is sixty minutes of life that will never be returned to me. It wasn't helping that I kept envisioning myself ripping the pencil out of his little hand so I could scribble the words on his paper and be done with it already. Instead, I came up with my own coping mechanism called the nightly half glass of wine. Not good.

Thankfully, the Kindergarten teachers had sense enough to stop sending home homework of any kind about three weeks ago. I think they know that not only are the kids done with school, but the mamas are also done with school at this point. We had reached the point in the night journal writing where  I may have told Jake not to bother drawing the three pictures he was supposed to use to illustrate his writing. I may or may not have seen his teachers note on one particular entry that said "don't forget about your pictures!" with a smiley face beside it.  Listen. I know this note was for me. Because I don't think Jake can read "don't forget about your pictures" yet. Although he is very good with reading things like "the baby is strong." Riveting. Besides, how many authors do you know who illustrate their own books? One. Eric Carle. That is it. And Jake is no Eric Carle.

I am so glad I am not the only mama who went from sending fully balanced nutritionally packed homemade lunches for my child to eat every day at the beginning of the year to just telling him to go through the cafeteria line again. Then last night I finally looked at his cafeteria account and realized the reason his money doesn't seem to be lasting long enough is because he is buying lots of .50 cent cookies and .75 cent CapriSun's and 1.00 cookies and ice cream that I didn't know about. Who knew the kid liked sherbet so much?

Last week when my parents were here I planned a trip for us to all go to a local farm to pick strawberries. I was totally going to take Jake out of school for the day even though my dad gave me a funny look about that. Who cares that he has already missed eleven days of school this year due to illness? One more day won't hurt him. At least he would be learning how to pick fruit instead of watching another movie or eating another popsicle or taking another extra recess. He would have an actual trade to fall back on someday if he learned how to pick strawberries. Sadly, my dad got sick and we cancelled the trip so I shipped Jake off to another day of school.

Today was the third Pajama day of this school year. The kids got to take books and flashlights to school so the teachers could turn out the lights while they read by themselves. Genius! Who doesn't think at least one teacher had to take a nap during this time? And trust me, I don't mind! I don't care. Do what you gotta do to make it through the last days. It is unreal, unfair and un-American that kids and teachers alike have to go to school at all after Memorial Day.

As for the class gift. I am sorry fellow parents that I have been bombarding you with emails to try to get you to donate some amount of money to buy our beloved teacher an end of the year gift. Your unresponsiveness was overwhelming. I have a child who comes home and tells me the things that your child has done in class that day. Trust me. You need to dig deep and show our teacher some love. The fact that I tried to arrange everything for you so you wouldn't have to do a darn thing but give me some money is unforgiveable. Go ahead and get your own gift.  And then write me three sentences about what you got her including an illustration.