A Different Kind of Difficult

"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives."

-Robert Maynard Hutchins

Well, we're in the thick of it. The school year has begun, and there is really nothing I can do about it. Here are the little darlings looking all cute and dapper in their hand-picked new school outfits.

This year, I have a senior, two junior high students, and a fifth grader, which means I have a mere 25 teachers and classes to keep track of. The teenagers are already beginning to roll their eyes as I ask for the 15th time,

"Now which classes do you have on A day?"

"Wait, what is your math teacher's name again? Is it Bennion? Oh ya, sorry that's Sabrina's science teacher. Is it Merrill? Oh ya, that's Jessica's english teacher. Oh, never mind."

I will get it eventually, most likely about one week before the semester change.

It didn't really hit me how up-to-my-eyeballs in the thick of it I was until last night, after dinner, when all of the children began to approach me with their disclosures.

I might have signed 15 or so disclosures. I lost count. I started out reading them first, but before too long I found myself mindlessly and frantically scribbling my name on anything that landed under my hand. I'm not positive, but it's entirely possible that I may have signed something that allowed one or more of my children to be sold into slavery or something like that. I don't know, it's all a blur. Actually it's more likely that I sold me into slavery. It is a little known fact that any parent who has to sign more than ten disclosures in any given school year becomes property of the school system. And any time, energy, or money allowed that parent also becomes property of the school system. It's true. Ask any parent of multiple teenagers. As I was quite literally signing my life away, I kept thinking, "Well, at least I don't have to shop for school supplies."

See, this is me being all awesome and purchasing my school supplies a full four days before the first day of school.

Despite my crazy week, I took my four children to Target to stock up on school supplies in advance. We found the back to school section, at which point all of the children fled. They were like little tasmanian devils flying through the store, stopping only long enough to fling a binder or a lunch box my direction. 

These little blurs, called my children, could only be made out faintly as they filled my cart with a fury.

We had ten binders, six composition books, 12 notebooks, pencils, pens, backpacks, pencil pouches, book covers, combination locks, a crate of lined paper, glue sticks, colored pencils, socks, underwear, you name it, we had it.

Two hours and $250.00 later, it was all done. I got home exhausted and maybe a little anemic after the financial hemorrhaging I had just experienced, but satisfied that we were prepared. Sure, I might have to run to the store for one or two items after the first day of school, but no biggie.

Fast forward to last night. I began to actually read the disclosures I had signed and began to make a list of the items that still needed to be purchased and probably turned white as the list grew to over 30 items. How could this be? After 2 hours and $250.00, how could I still have to buy this much stuff?

It was off to the store again. Hobby Lobby for a 9 x 12 sketch pad, Deseret Book for Book of Mormons for the girls to take to seminary, and then to Target. That place already had far too much of our money, but there we were. It looked like it had been ravaged by the back to school Grinch with not so much as a pink eraser left for us five or six desperate parents. There we stood with weary faces, pastel supply lists in hand, staring blankly at the bare shelves. I almost turned to one of the moms and plead,

"You don't understand. I don't belong here. I spent two hours and $250.00 at this store already. I'm not one of those last minute unprepared moms. Ok, I am one of those moms, but this year I made a concerted effort not to be one of those moms!"

I knew my complaints would fall on deaf ears, as every parent in the store was in zombie mode. I'm sure they were there for the 3rd time as well. I heard one frustrated mom inform her child that she would not be spending $45.00 on a calculator for a 7th grade math class. I was grateful for my two $85.00 graphing calculators at home that somehow made the move. I heard another mom say with desperation, "Maybe if we go to a random store like Rite Aid, we might find some of this stuff." Yep, the situation was that desperate.

I began to scavenge for school supplies. Highlighters, dry erase markers, red pens, dividers, sticky dividers, Sharpies, compass, protractor, ruler, mechanical pencils, lead, more colored pencils, more composition books, graph paper. I even located one of those blasted pink erasers. Somehow I mustered everything on my list but two items, a pencil sharpener, and the adult sized scissors that apparently, according to the teacher,  5th graders prefer over the small ones I bought. Two hours and another $100.00 later, we were done for real.

Last week's shopping exhaustion did not hold a candle to last night. I went to bed so tired but wired. My brain would not settle down, because I'm in the thick of it now, and I don't know if I can do this.

Music lessons are in full force.

Reading minutes, Lexile points, and math homework has already begun.

Soccer season is alive and well.

There are homecoming dresses to shop for.

I'm throwing money at anything that moves. There are Concurrent Enrollment courses to register and pay for. Youth Symphony fees that are due. There are class fees that somehow slipped through the cracks at registration. 

There are the filling out of teenage job applications to oversee. And college applications are literally due in three months. You young moms with little ones may ask one of us more seasoned mothers if the craziness of motherhood gets any easier. We will probably all tell you the same thing. It's just as difficult. It's just a different kind of difficult. It's still really really hard. It's just different. What I have just described is that different kind of difficult. There is so much about parenting teenagers that is so stinkin' hard. And yet there is so much that is so gosh darn great and fun about it. I can't give up the difficult stuff, for fear that I might miss out on the great stuff.

The great stuff, like homecoming dress shopping, and helping your child fill out job and college applications, and going to music lessons, and soccer games, and trying to decide if you might possibly be able to read along with all three of your kids' honors english classes, because the literature they will be devouring is so great, and I want to read along with them so that we can have heated discussions about the Hobbit and Crime and Punishment. The great stuff is so closely intertwined with the difficult stuff. The great stuff is the difficult stuff. I guess that's my epiphany for the day. The difficult stuff about parenting is really actually the great stuff, and I won't give it up. How I'll survive this school year, I can't tell you, some definite help from a higher power will be required. But I'll give it my best shot, taking the difficult so I can relish the great.