My Back to School To Do List...

Your words are: 

genius ~ stupidity ~ brain ~ science ~ art ~ insanity

They were submitted by: http://thesadderbutwisergirl.com    

It's almost time for my kids to go back to school. I have almost a weekend in between now and the first day of school. I just read Jen Mann's thought-provoking post about things she found on Pinterest to do before school starts and reasons they suck, and now I feel like I just woke up 2 hours after I was supposed to be at work, and I'm asking myself, "What the fuck happened to my alarm clock?"

What did happen to it? I swear I set that alarm for the end of July. When did August get here? Why didn't I get a memo about August? 

Now anyone who reads my blog knows I'm not a June Cleaver Pinterest-Perfect mom on my best day, and there are many other moms who are on board with me on this, "that's bull shit" bandwagon much like Jen Mann's post I mentioned above. I thought June Cleaver was the kind of mom I was going to be back in my young, naive stupidity days before motherhood, but my experiences have led me to believe one of the following occurs with perfect parents out there otherwise known as the June Cleavers:

1. They are faking it. They don't do half the shit they claim to do.

2. They are neglecting their kid in the name of doing everything for their kid. 

3. They only have one kid, and an army of adults to help them care for that one kid. 

4. They aren't human. They are aliens plotting to destroy the earth with Mount Fuji High expectations designed to create overworked, sleep-deprived slave parent drones for future abductions.   

Mind you, I'm totes aware that half of my obstacles with parenting was the fact that I had 3 girls, back to back. It's a different ball game with kids that close in age. So knowing this about me, this is my to-do list for school. This is the survival guide of the fittest. It is not someone faking it. It won't neglect your kids to where you are screaming, "STOP FIGHTING" as they are pounding each others faces while you are desperately looking at a clothing tag for the size as you are sorting for what to donate...

1. Enroll the kids who are not automatically enrolled.

In my case, this is the Pre-K. The last kid. This I started in March. The day they opened pre-k registration, I camped out at the school around 3AM waiting for 7AM. There were already 5 other mothers camping with me. It's the only free pre-school, and the only pre-school that operates more than 3 hours a day, 3 days a week, in a 10 mile high-traffic radius, and it only has room for like 5 kids who aren't Head Start. Now I know some moms don't mind driving 20 minutes or a half hour to get their kid to school, but try getting 3 kids to two schools 30 minutes apart at the same time.

Then last week, I got a call from the school demanding the immunization records and birth certificate or the kid doesn't get to go. She said it in a threatening manner just like that too. The immunizations, I got what I could faxed. Now the birth certificate, they want one from the state, not the one they give you when you give birth, so the one I have isn't good enough. So I drove all 3 of my kids an hour one way to the state Capitol, got the piece of paper waiting in a long line with 3 kids, drove back without stopping to shop, and gave the school the piece of paper.

2. Do some laundry.

You don't have to do all the laundry. I mean what kind of life would you have if your laundry was caught up? Ha. No, just make sure you have a good week's worth of clean clothes for the kids. When it comes to things like getting laundry caught up and sorting through clothes packing away summer clothes, giving away out-grown clothes, washing winter coats... Do all that other shit while they are at school. You'll be more productive if you don't have them tugging on your leg every 30 seconds. I feel like the Pinterest Genius with my, "Wait until AFTER school starts," like duh!

3. "Sew" Clothes

I know this sounds Pinterest, but it's not. My kids have a lot of holes on the knees of their pants, those stretchy leg warmer pants we wear under skirts and long shirts that you can wear all year. That's most of what they wear. So I went to Walmart and got fabric swatches that were cheap and cool looking, and fabric glue. I glued those SOB's over the holes on the insides of the pants. I did the iron-on glue. The hardest part was not gluing the pants together or getting cardboard on the glue from in between. Next round, I'm trying parchment paper in between the pants. I did this on the living room floor while watching Netflix after the kids went to bed.

4. Shop back to school items

I still have to shop some back to school clothes, something we don't normally do until mid-fall for sales, better clothing options as winter gear isn't really out in August, and more money (I always seem to be waiting for some big check around September). But the things we do get before school starts...

• Backpacks.
• Back-up Backpacks (cheap ugly ones on sale) because my kids won't go to school without one, and they are so young they don't really need one.
• Art shit by Crayola so they have the false sense of getting back to school supplies they don't need because the school supplies that shit. Don't worry, they'll play with them, lose them, and break them before school starts. It was just for fun.
• Folders. The school provides a folder, but they expect you to clean it out daily. Psssht. As if I have no life right? Get a folder for the backpack designed to move the school papers over to that folder. Teach your kid to do it.
• Shoes. This the mother-in-law does. But shoes are important because they ruin all their shoes in the summer.

5. Paper Bin for each kid.

You don't want to keep this where the kids can find it or reach it, but you want a bin for each kid to throw the papers you don't throw away. The art work. Some of the hand-writing if you do what I do... I once tried one of those little wall hanging things. They are still up there with kid names on it. No, you fill it up too fast. The schools hate trees and are trying to kill all the rainforests with the amount of paper they send home. I also tried a file in the filing cabinet. Again, I was thinking too small. You need a real bin, like something that can hold a comforter.

What I did one year, and will do again this year... When my oldest finished first grade, I grabbed a stack of her papers from school with her handwriting, and I turned it into a font. I want to do that with all my kids. I might write a how-to some day, or provide it as a paid service maybe... The artwork is also going to be a font that I shall call Refrigerator Art.

This year, I'm also thinking of seeing how annoying it is to recycle paper for all the girl scouts ads, parenting magazines, nutrition sheets, fundraisers and 3 page papers about field trips.


This is about it.

The sleep schedule? That will happen on its own, and it's easier to just let the school day do it for you because the activity they do at school, you can never mimic it at home because you don't have all the kids the school has. The socializing wears them down more than playing outside, and you need that in order to get them to actually fall asleep before 10 PM. For those who make their kids lay down at 9PM and yell at them to go to sleep until midnight, seriously, stop stressing about it.

In fact, just about everything you can possibly think to do you should wait until school starts and you have all those hours to yourself to do them. Now my

AFTER SCHOOL STARTS THINGS TO DO

1. Clean the house
2. Shampoo carpets
3. Sort through clothes prepping for winter
4. Type things in Google Calendar as the kids bring home school stuff
5. Teach science since the schools don't anymore for my kids' age. We have a microscope and telescope now.
6. Find my brain I lost this summer.
7. Get the flu shots because the schools are filled with mini-assassins trying to kill you with germs, just like they did with the Indians.
8. Lysol the classroom when teachers aren't looking because number 7.
9. Prep house for flu season disinfection
10. Fuck my husband

Embrace the peace of having the day to yourself, and the insanity school makes you pay for it. Don't volunteer for anything.

Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

http://Bakinginatornado.com                                       Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/                          Spatulas on Parade

http://themomisodes.com                                      The Momisodes

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/               Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.JuiceboxConfession.com                             Juicebox Confession

http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com                 Evil Joy Speaks

http://followmehome.shellybean.com                   Follow me home . . .

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com                       Someone Else’s Genius

http://www.crumpetsandbollocks.com                       Crumpets and Bollocks

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/                      Stacy Sews and Schools 

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com              The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://thesadderbutwisergirl.com                       The Sadder But Wiser Girl

Also Check out Abandoning Pretense and Why She's Not Ready to go Back to School. 

My friend graduated Nursing school, so we all got drunk.

Today is Use your Words writing prompt. Ok, I'm going to be honest with you. I knew this was coming. I knew this was due on Friday, today. I just didn't know it was Friday, like I still think it's Tuesday, and my google calendar notified me last night during my second drink at a huge party, and I'm a little slow today. So slightly hungover with children begging me for attention, I'm going to spit out a blog post using words hand selected by Someone Else's Genius. 

I just need a topic... 

Ok. So last night my friend Jamie graduated from nursing school. She is officially an LPN. I'm so proud of her. 

When we first became friends, my life made sense, and she was a hot mess. She had two boys ages 2 and 3 at the time, and she was barely old enough to drink. She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, well she had some idea, but it was a stupid idea, so stupid I refuse to post it here because it would incriminate against both of us. So, anyway, now after many years of friendship, I'm the hot mess with 3 girls back to back, and Jamie is the one with her shit together. 

It wasn't easy. She actually is the mother of 3. Her youngest child, her daughter, Deziray, passed away when she was 2 years old resulting from Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. She was diagnosed at 6 months of age with a brain tumor, and successfully beat cancer by the age of 2; however, cancer left her somewhat broken and vulnerable, so a common cold sent her to the ER, and I'm not sure if the nurse gave her too much oxygen sparking the ARDS, or if the ARDS happened on its own. 

The bottom line was a nurse wasn't doing her job right and potentially played a huge role in losing a child. But it was the nurses who helped my friend through so much in taking care of her child. Somehow, the entire experience showed my friend in her darkest hour what she is truly capable of. Despite working full time and being the breadwinner in her family, she managed to take care of her 2 boys and a baby who needed so much. She blindly went into the medical profession as a mother, and now she is armed with certification and knowledge. 

She is exactly the kind of woman whose story empowers others. 

Following the graduation ceremony was a huge party. Her parents own campgrounds along the river, and her father spent quite a bit of his life owning a bar for a living, so they have the place set up for the most epic parties you can imagine. Their little unknown haven is nestled along side a little cliff along the river. They have a boat with a huge dock, and walking up the stairs and ramps lead you to one of those open shelters you find in a park, but his is unlike any you will see in a park. It is decorated with random signs like, "What happens at the river stays at the river." (Yeah, unless I show up and blog about it). There's a traffic light to bring color to the night's scene. It has 2 refrigerators, speakers and stereo, and cabinets full of things like plastic cups and beer pong kits. Next to that little shelter is a place for a fire. They jimmied some sort of hubcap from a semi truck or something unusual like that into a fire pit. Most "parties" or evenings sitting along side the river includes Miller Light, Jimmy Buffet, a cozy fire, and people from all over the campground.

Battle Axe Part 2 is Co-Owner of the Party Cove

Last night, they extended their usual party scene. One of our friends is a DJ, so they set him up in an open field the size of suburbia's back yard where we created a dance floor, but be careful, the corner to the right of the DJ has some sort of hole and tree root sticking out of the ground. We weren't as drunk as we appeared. Maybe we were.

The Best DJ EVER

The "Diet Coke" Flip Cup Game

Then they took another open fielded area between campers and set up a beer pong table, and a cup flipping table. Apparently relay races are not only for children. I never heard of it, but you drink your cup of beer, set it right side up on the edge of the table, and flip it. First one to get the cup to flip right side up with one flip, and little drunken telekinesis, wins, or if there's more on your team, it goes to the next person. I'm just too old to know about this game. When I was young and drinking, we did Spades, Dominoes, Poker, Strip Poker, and Presidents and Assholes (which I still don't totally understand because you have to be drunk for it to make sense, and it's hard to remember things you learned drunk when you are sober). 

Then there's the huge field across the way where tents were set up for drunk people to crash and freeze.

Most of the people at this party, I never met before because they were in my friend's nursing class. Some were really young, and there was this one woman who was much older than me dropping it like it's hot better than those young ones. But of course, the person I hung out with the most was a very young flaming gay guy who I swore most of the night was my girlfriend as I'm the butch one in our relationship. He won the Limbo contest some girl who looks exactly like Star from The Lost Boys on a whim decided to have with a sash from one of the nurses. I would have won considering I'm double jointed, but my boobs were totally working against me. My boobs were also kind of falling out of my dress (I don't fit in any of my clothes anymore thanks to those Apple Pies I kept eating whole in one sitting last Thanksgiving; so what?), and I swear my cleavage acted as an arrow to grab me here because just about everyone who wouldn't make my husband jealous at some point honked my boob, including my girlfriend by accident.

My girlfriend and I, dancing, or
better said, I was holding him up.

The craziest person at the party just happened to also be the most sober person at the party.

I guess if I mention her shenanigans, I won't be allowed to tag people with this blog post on Facebook, but anyway, she dry humped a lot of people, with a balloon in the shape of a number 1 that turned phallic symbol quick on us. Some people licked her balloon. She also dry humped a minivan's windshield for the unsuspecting audience trying to leave. We have pictures, and video.

Speaking of which, pictures. Ok, so some people at this party are not allowed be seen at places like this party for reasons I cannot mention, so I can't just post pictures and tag people. But I want to post pictures anyway, so I'm going to be doing that later. If you read this blog, come back later for the pictures. I have to post this without pictures because I forgot it was Friday. Whatever it takes to get this up close to on time, right?

All right... pictures...

That is not really George Lopez and Katy Perry.
This was obviously photoshopped.

This is their authentic Bit Strip Profile Faces

Your words are: Blind  ~ epic ~ telekinesis ~ arrow ~ whatever it takes

They were submitted by: http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com       

Read more of this hop. Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

http://bakinginatornado.com                                Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/                          Spatulas on Parade

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/                      Stacy Sews and Schools

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/                              Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/         Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://dates2diapers2.blogspot.com                        Dates 2 Diapers 2

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/                  The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://thesadderbutwisergirl.com                        The Sadder But Wiser Girl

http://themomisodes.com                                    The Momisodes

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com                   Someone Else’s Genius

http://followmehome.shellybean.com                 Follow me home . . .

http://www.crumpetsandbollocks.com             Crumpets and Bollocks