Another school year is here (or almost here, in our case, but not quite). As nice as it will be to have a schedule again to fill up all that scary blank space on the calendar, I’m daunted by the time and money challenges that lie ahead for 2012-13.

Sixth and third grades: more homework, more responsibilities, more sports equipment, and more clothing to replace what they’ve outgrown. New England autumns and winters don’t help, either—this is definitely the land of at least three seasons of clothes and footwear.

So I’m trying to come up with a better game plan for this single-mama household. Chaos reigns a little too often here, and I’d like that to change. That’s tricky, of course, in a home with two dogs, two cats, two kids and one adult, so I’m looking for some wisdom from you!

What’s working for your family—small, large or in-between?
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I am sorting through bills and paperwork and growling like feral animal, as I do at least four times a day. I have found letters alluding to summer reading lists for my children, but I cannot find the actual summer reading lists.

NO LIKEY. I hate summer reading lists, and everything having to do with them. I growl more loudly.

Firstborn enters and plops down beside me, looking all smart and cultured and acutely, vehemently well-read, which only peeves me more. “You’re still not done?”

“What have you heard me say about summer reading lists? You’ve heard me say bad words about the summer reading lists, right? Like, every year. THEY PROVOKE ME TO SAY BAD WORDS IN FRONT OF MY CHILDREN. Teachers who issue summer reading homework? They should be reported to the Department of Social Services. For PROVOKING PARENTS TO SWEAR ON AN ANNUAL BASIS.”

“Uh-huh,” says Firstborn, who is amused, as ever, by my visible frustration and verbal use of ALL CAPS. She scratches my back with her fingernails to soothe me while she picks up a piece of crumpled paper. She scans it. “What’s this one?”

“Homework for parents,” I whine. “Why don’t they understand? This is summertime. Mommy is supposed to be lying by a very chlorinated pool, drinking her Special Summer-Edition Mommy Juice, wearing a polka-dot bikini and a stunt double, while you and your sister kick your legs out of treehouses and swing in tire swings and wander in swamps and poke at toads with sticks and sell lemonade in sexual-offender-free zones. But noooooo. What do I get in the mail? Adult homework, in which I am supposed to write about my goals for my ALREADY PERFECTLY PERFECT CHILDREN.”
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Kid #2 and I are obsessed with the Olympics. I’ve always been obsessed with the Olympics, but this is the first time she’s been old enough and happy enough to watch with me. We’ve been hooting and hollering like fools every night during primetime coverage and in the afternoons during the more random sports. We don’t care what sport it is. We like it all. We like the kangaroo prancing of the high jumpers. We like the hurdlers and the runners and the sprinters. We like the pole vaulters and the divers and the horseback riders and the gymnasts, artistic and rhythmic. We like all the human interest stories. We like Mary Carillo, trying to play bagpipes and walking on the Prime Meridian in Greenwich and drinking green smoothies with Oscar Pistorius. And we like beach volleyball, because we figured out the scoring system all by ourselves.
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July has gone, and August is here, bringing with it my daughters. Back from sleepaway camp (first time around for the younger one, second time for the firstborn), the girls are twelve years older and seven feet taller and are probably already married with kids, but just haven’t told me yet.

I cannot stop hugging them. They don’t mind, not even a bit.

The older one tells me that my letters to her at camp made her laugh so hard, the other girls demanded to hear them. So every day, she would read my words out loud to the entire tipi.

This information makes me feel like the coolest mom ever. I try not to blush.

Camp was easy for the firstborn. No sweat. She stayed for two weeks, no prob, no homesickness. She is, at the age of 11, a consummate adventurer.

Camp was not as easy for the little one. She toughed it out for one week, not wanting to disappoint her dad or his parents. My letters had a different effect on her.

“I nearly cried happy tears when I read your emails,” she tells me, sitting in my lap, snuggling like the Snuggle Champ she is. “I missed you soooooo much. Then I was like, okay, Hannah, you can DO this. Just make it through another day.”

“I am so proud of you,” I tell her. “Like, I am almost passing out from proudness. You are so, so brave. The way you talked to yourself and stayed calm — that’s amazing.”

She nods, accepting the compliment. “I knew people would ask me, ‘How was camp?’ And I kept telling myself, okay, it will be better if I have an answer.”
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