Dear Family,

Going back to school has been the easy part about going back to school.  The hard part is all the stuff that doesn't get done while I am gone or studying.  I think y'all been spoiled by having a stay at home mother for all these years.  Even when I worked, I made sure I could either bring y'all with me or I worked at home. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every minute of it.  I am grateful I was able to breast feed babies and not have to rely on strangers to raise you.  But y'all aren't babies any more.  Everyone is (finally) in school now and so it is time to hang up my apron.  I have waited a long time for my turn.

In order for this transition to go more smoothly than it has for the past couple of months, let me help you by giving you some useful tips: 

1. If you use a dish, you must wash it afterwards.  And no, this is not suggesting there is an option of eating off the floor or trying to eat spaghetti with your hands.

2. If you are hungry, you know where the kitchen is. 

3. If you tell me one more time there is nothing to eat when in fact there is plenty, we will play a game called "Prison" in which I will serve you only bread and water for a week.

4. Boys: if you "miss" while aiming, there is a handy dandy toilet wand by the toilet.  Work some magic, OK?

5. I know most of you in this family are very short.  If you cannot aim your spit for the hole in the sink, please use the handy dandy step stool so you will not coat the entire counter with slobbery Crest for Kids Bubble Mint toothpaste.

6. Believe it or not, this house has a laundry room.  It is downstairs and there are 2 big machines in there.  One is called a washing machine and the other is a dryer.  I will be teaching a one time only lesson on how to use them tonight so make sure you are there and listening carefully.

7. When you take off your shoes, for the love of god, please make a mental note of where you are in the house so that you will be able to find them the next morning before school.  I know it's incredible, but I actually do not know where your shoes are at any given time. It may seem that I do, but I don't.

8.  I also do not know when your school projects are due.  I know it may seem like I talk to your teachers personally each day, but I don't.  I have no clue what you are supposed to be working on.  Keep up with your own assignments.  Write things down.  There are a gazillion sticky notes in the drawer where the silverware is.  Use them.  And I am warning you:  If you spring some last minute thing on me again and expect me to go out to Walmart in my pajamas to buy you some poster board or modeling clay in the middle of the night when it finally pops in your head that you need to make a brain, a cell, an Indian Mound, a volcano, or some book report presentation, you can just forget it.  I will let you have the experience of failure and you can just grow up living in a van down by the river.

xoxo,
Mom