Can Parents Get the Back to School Blues?

It’s officially Back to School season here in the Atlanta, Georgia area.  My girls are in their fifth day of school.  Little Sister started Kindergarten and Big Sister is in first grade.  They love their teachers and they love school.  I will admit, I love the quiet of them being gone.  Well, some of the quiet, but not all of it.  Maybe an hour or two…then I want them back!  I know, that’s a little bit like crazy talk.

Back to School Blues?

For the past four years I have had a 12:30’ish pickup from preschool.  I was so used to having my girls (at least one of them) home with me at 12:30 that I didn’t realize how big a part of our routine it had become.  This year the girls get dropped off from the school bus at 3:00 (I still think it is a little crazy to pick kids up from school when there is a perfectly good school bus that will bring them home, but I learned that I will never say never when it comes to carpooling in the afternoon).  The hours from 12:30 until 3:00 drag by.  Surely I should be happy about this?  Think of all the things I should be accomplishing (my blogging to-do pile is LONG, there are boxes that still need to be unpacked, and I have to shop for items like towel and toilet paper holders).  But I just sort of sit here…and check facebook, play Candy Crush, look at Pinterest, and waste my time.

Never Say Never

The biggest thing I have learned about parenting is to never say never.   When I was pregnant I said my baby would never sleep in bed with me.  And then exhaustion hit and my baby slept in bed with me.  I said I would never give my baby candy and then Little Sister was born and she wanted the same things her 15 month, 3 week older sister wanted.  Surely a bite of candy wasn’t going to kill her?

Last year I thought it was silly when parents carpooled their children to school.  There are perfectly good school busses that do that for us.  I mistakenly thought that I would never carpool my children.  That was until I saw the time that the bus arrives in our neighborhood…..6:45?!?!  But it has been coming early…at 6:40!!  Ugh.  No thank you!  School starts at 7:40 and that seems like an incredibly long time to just be waiting.  So my girls sleep until 6:30 and we leave at 7:05 and then I…..carpool them to school.

I never thought I would feel a little sad to have a whole day to myself.  Until I got 5 of them in a row for all the weeks of the school year.

The smiling faces of my daughters absolutely make me happy.  The mean words to each other, the bickering, the poking….those are only temporary things that will pass (I still have my fingers cross actually).  I didn’t realize that ALL of their qualities fill our house and make it perfect.

As a parent, have you experienced the Back to School Blues?