Surviving the School Year

Everyone figures out a way throughout the school year that fits both working and school schedules into an easier lifestyle. When my three were little I worked full time, so I whittled out routines that became our “normal.” It ensured we made time for everyone and everything, including free time.

Here is what worked for us and I hope you share your ideas so we can help each other make life less hectic.

1. Stock up on extra school supplies and keep them handy at home – notebook paper, spirals, pens, pencils, crayons, markers, glue, rulers, a good pencil sharpener – whatever kids might forget at school but will need at home to complete homework assignments or projects. Keep a couple of poster boards handy so you do not have to drive to the store in the middle of the night when they remember they have a project due the next day.

2. Provide a space where you can supervise homework and study while you work on your own projects. My three had to sit at the kitchen table for one hour every evening (Sunday night through Thursday night) and do homework or read to me. If one was having trouble (low grade) in a certain subject, they had to study that subject in addition to other homework. I read along with them and helped where I could as I worked on dinner.

Before they put away their things, they cleaned out their bags, checked for papers or notes I might need to sign, and replenished their school supplies.

3. We all kept our bags by the exit door. They were handy to grab and go the next morning. They also chose their outfits and other items they needed for the next day, like gym clothes, uniforms, or equipment.

4. Along with their bedtime routine, they packed their lunches and decided on their breakfast. I did this also, like prepping the coffee pot. It didn’t take long, nothing elaborate, but it saved time on sleepy and tired mornings.

5. It sounds like a lot of rules and regulations, but rest and recreation was an important consideration as well. My children were active in church and in after school activities, so that provided for healthy, safe outlets. The daily “study hour” lasted from Sunday night through Thursday night in preparation for school the next day, so they had the rest of the evening free to do other things. Friday evenings were game nights or out with friends. Saturdays were free after they did their chores (which took one or two hours at the most), and on Sunday, they could go out with friends after church until about seven in the evening.

As the kids grew, they became accustomed to our routine. They never noticed when I stopped supervising and let them govern themselves.

They are grown now with families of their own, but I see remnants of this when I visit their homes. Book bags pile by the front door, kids sit around kitchen tables doing homework, and everyone helps with chores so that family has time to get to the fun stuff.

It gave order to our busy lifestyle, emphasized what was important (school and church and good, clean fun), and glued us together as a family.

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Years ago, a skunk sprayed our yard during the night and the next morning I trekked out to my car to drive to work and unknowingly stepped into the oily residue. I tracked skunk stink into my Jeep and onto the carpet in my office, a room I shared with a kind and forgiving co-worker. It took a week or two and several large cans of Lysol and air freshener to get rid of the smell. Ever since my profound Close Encounter of a Second Kind (I never saw the skunk but it left evidence of its presence), I became a skunk expert. I learned the way of the skunk. My experience imprinted itself into my hippocampus and I acquired a heightened sense of smell. I can detect a skunk several miles away, outperforming a normal human nose that can only start to do the same at one mile. I have the same uncanny sense about adolescents. After 30-plus years of teaching teenagers and having raised three of my own, you might say, I have reached the Close Encounter level of a Fifth Kind: I have actually

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I stink at dating – always have. I sputter. I hyperventilate. I fail miserably every time. I blame a pathetically underdeveloped gene that got little use before I married in my early twenties, then atrophied, gathering dust and rust, until I became single again in my fifties. I decided to use this defect to my advantage when I needed to do some investigative reporting a few years back. While on a newspaper writing assignment on Boomer-aged dating, I sacrificed my dignity and my vanity for the sake of the story (and I got several). Thank goodness, HoneyBunch saved me from all this when we married. (He comes up with the best dates.) I’ve decided I will “show you mine if you show me yours.” I will swap dating horror stories with you, but you have to promise to play along. The trick here is to tell about your worst date in 25 words or less. You must keep it clean and you cannot name names. Our little contest will run only this week and before my next blogger posting. Me

Raquel Martina Martinez

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