How to Survive the Second to the Last Month of School

1.  Invest in a quality set of ear plugs.  These will be helpful for handling the increased decibel level of sibling rivalry, the incessant chatter from young children, the high decibel level of homework complaints, and the torturous wails of children who are being asked to perform a chore or necessary task.

2.  Buy a good quantity of matches to light a fire under your kids' arses.  Instead of becoming more proficient at something your kids have been doing for approximately 135 days (that is:  getting up, getting dressed, eating breakfast, getting their lunches together, brushing their teeth, combing their hair, and making it out to the bus in the nick of time), sometime during the second to the last month of school they will oddly regress to the stage of toddlerhood where everything must be repeated 8000 times and they move as if they have Aunt Jemima syrup running in their veins.

3.  Stock up on carbs, adult beverages, greasy and/or salty food, and chocolate and/or other sweets.  This is kind of a paradox because although you have approximately 30 days until someone might possibly have to see you in a bathing suit and way less than 30 days to actually go to a store and try on bathing suits (with bad lighting and pasty skin) and therefore you should really be trying everything to lose the 10 pounds of winter weight you have gained, the stress of the second to the last month of school is going to make you want to shovel in every morsel of not-good-for-you food that you can possibly get a hold of.

4.  Carefully launder and neatly pack away all of your kids' winter clothes items and launder all of the blankets and other linens that you are not going to need for six and a half months.  And then just pack them all away dirty and unorganized again after dragging them all back out because Mother Nature decides to leave you with just one more cold snap.

5.  Plan and pay for your summer vacation so that you can use the following threat against your kids each and every time they misbehave or act as if they are about to misbehave from now until your summer vacation:  IF YOU DON'T STOP DOING THAT (or IF YOU DO THAT ONE MORE TIME, or IF YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT DOING THAT) YOU ARE GOING TO STAY HOME ALONE WHILE WE ARE ALL ON THE WHITE SANDS BEACHES OF TAHITI.  (I use that only as an example.  If we were actually going to Tahiti on vacation this would be an alternate universe.)

6.  Begin to scope out every Vacation Bible School in the city so that you can register your kids for each and every one.  In this way your kids can be well-rounded Christians.  (I don't actually do that because once my kids attend the only VBS they have ever attended I am pretty sure that VBS puts out an APB on my kids along with their photos so that every other VBS in the city is on alert for them and is ready to put out the "full" sign should I come along with my application.)

7.  Begin to make a list of all the things that you are going to get done once school lets out for the summer.  Gradually cross things off the list because as reality sinks in they are way too difficult to achieve with kids in the home.  Add all those things to your current daily lists and stare at that until you become too overwhelmed to move.  Eat or drink some of the food or beverages referred to in #3.

8.  Spend a good eight hours painstakingly making a summer budget wherein you assess what your home needs in terms of a "face lift", research how much these items might cost, and who might do these repairs for you.  Then, patiently pay for the following things that break before you can even cash your quickly disappearing tax refund check:  the air conditioner, the water heater, the dog, the hair dryer, the printer, and the tub.

9.  Change your calendar to May even though it's still April.  (And if it was still on February - consider that a bonus.)  April is going to slide by in a blur of school events, end of year shenanigans, empty beer cans (that you can't really remember drinking), birthday parties (damn the August heat - or something -  that apparently led to 90% of my kids' friends being born in April), piles of work (some of it the result of March's procrastination), summer vacation planning, budgeting, and worthless attempts at fitness in order to fit into a bathing suit.  Most of the $hit that happens in April will not even make it on your calendar.  Trust me on this one.

10.  Remember - if all else fails, you can always homeschool next year!  (That almost always gets me into the right frame of mind to make it through the day!)