I used to love May Day. Bulbs blooming, grass getting green, days at least STARTING to try and get a little longer….. the promise of summer relaxation looming, full of promise, on the horizon. Oh yeah.
But when you are a parent, May Day becomes more like MAYDAY!!
There is so much to do – May is the moment that the insanely big wave of all the parental shit you are doing finally breaks, and washes over you… grab something and hold the f*ck on, or be sucked out into the sea of trying to wrap up a school year while simultaneously plotting an entire summer AND making sure you have everything you need in place for the coming school year.
MAYDAY MAYDAY, we have a mom down! Send coffee!! Send wine!! Throw up some shameless bargaining prayer!!
Every time I open my email, I find a new deluge of invitations for end-of-year school year activities, and forms to fill out for summer day camp, and even more forms for the coming fall, and (the worst) an unending supply of notices regarding MORE fees for said summer and fall.
All of the flat surfaces in our house are covered in forms and notices and finished products, with a fresh new hell of paper added to the pile each evening when Jr’s backpack explodes in a crapstorm that leads me to believe nightly that “this must’ve been the big day for sending stuff home.” But no…. no no… Silly, silly Keri. Tomorrow’s pile will make you long for the smaller size of today’s.
The entire last 3 weeks leading up to the final day of the school year is an m-f-ing blur. It is like I KNOW the days must actually be passing, but I can’t remember where they go.
A great example of this is that I actually started writing this the week BEFORE May Day. As in, May 1st. But then I blinked, got buried in a backpack paper explosion, and OH LOOK, it is May 15th.
This past weekend I cooked brunch for my parents to celebrate Mothers’ Day – and part of that “celebration” included 20 minutes where we all poured over our summer calendars, marking out all of the things we already KNOW are happening – followed by scrutinizing the leftover dates to see where we can wedge in other things that we all need or want to happen.
When did summer turn into something I need project management software for!?
Not to mention the last week of school that is roaring up on us – otherwise known as “the week Keri is going to office in her car in the school parking lot,” evidently. I think there is at least one family participation activity a day for us in Jr’s class from now until the end of school. There needs to be some sort of “emergency May mom clone” that we can all keep in the basement storage closet and just charge her up to trade off conference calls and field days… family picnics and reconciliation reports…. appreciation teas and power points… and play performances and making meals and permission slip completion and new hire intros and sports physicals and laundry and bank file approval and swimming lessons and magazine submissions and carpool and HVAC tune ups and bedtime story books and ……
MAYDAY MAYDAY!!!!
Reluctantly Suburban 
