1st DAY OF SCHOOL HAPPINESS!!!

I have to admit something to the world today – I am so unbelievably happy that my kids are back in school!!! 

This feeling is new for me.  I have never been the parent who was excited about the school year starting because when I was teaching that meant MY summer was over too!!  However, (as I stated in a previous blog…) now that I am at home running a business it’s a little different.

 I’m quite tired of stopping sibling fights every 15 minutes while trying to talk to a customer on the phone.  Or, trying to make out what a customer is saying with CRASH BOOM BANG taking place in the background. Or, locking myself in the office only to have children bang on the office door.  I think you get my point. 

Still, the guilt I have felt from wanting school to start has messed with my mind a little bit, until last night…

Our oldest had a class picnic to go to Sunday night.  His super fun teachers planned for the families to have both classes bring food and celebrate the start of the year at a local park.  It was great for kids and parents to talk and play and re-hash the world of parenting!  What I was so thankful to hear was all the other moms being thankful for the school year to start and possibly even more thrilled to hear that many of their frustrations were just the same as mine!!  I found that I was not the only mom who was ready for her precious little angels to leave the house for 7 hours every day. 

Several of us have businesses we run from our home – with cell phones, computers and the internet – it’s amazing how common at-home businesses are these days.  To hear these moms talk, you’d think they were describing my own house!!  We truly connected through our frustrations.  Misery DOES love company!!  But it wasn’t just how much the kids irritated us – it was how guilty we felt that they did!  I believe moms are extremely hard on themselves when kids are fighting or when things aren’t running smoothly at home.  We take it so personal.  We remember every tiny mistake we have made.  So when little Junior isn’t acting appropriately we blame it on the time he was six months old and we didn’t hold him for 3 days because we were sick with the flu.  And now, we believe it was those three days that will forever scar him because Mommy didn’t take time to hold him while she had her head in the toilet puking. Ridiculous, I know – but tell me there isn’t a mom who hasn’t had this thought run through her worried head.   Also, in a day and age with social media where people only post the “greatest and best” about their lives it makes you question yourself even more.  Nights like last night help you put it all in perspective.  Getting a group of moms together who are real about what’s frustrating them gives you some relief – check that, HUGE relief.  And really, let’s be honest – there is no such thing as a perfect home, perfect life, perfect parenting, perfect kids – you name it, perfect doesn’t exist.   Plain and simple.  But despite knowing it, we still have to be reminded of it!

I know I was thankful for the kids to go back to school, but I think my kids were ready as well.  Neither of them complained as I woke them up this morning.  They obediently (though one child not very happily…) posed for their “first day of school” picture that moms always take.  Both of them hopped in the car school supplies in hand and visited happily with each other as we drove off.  I could see they were excited to see their friends as we walked in the school.  But what made me really smile was how happy all the parents were!  There was an abundance of smiling parents this morning both inside and outside of the school building.  I even saw one mom on Facebook post a “first day of school for Mom” picture!!  I thought it was HYSTERICAL!!  Here we have all these pictures of kids and what grades they are going off too and then one mom represented ALL moms with her picture!!  After all, it’s OUR first day of the school year too!!  Loved it – and I am thankful I am friends with such awesome women who can laugh at this day together!!

So, here is a shout out to all my mom friends who have spent the summer pulling their hair out – we have from August to May to grow it all back!  Happy first day of school!!