The Big Sigh – Summer is Over

From three years ago, when five kids went off to school, leaving me and the youngest (then two years old) alone at home to fend for ourselves...

If I had had any sense, I would have been like normal moms who are relieved that school has started. I would have planned mid-morning solo shopping excursions or a “coffee with the girls” celebration as we all exchanged the Big Sigh that marks our emergence from the long tunnel called Summer.

In that tunnel, your kids camped (or cramped) around you, while you made constant social connections for them in order to temporarily eject a child or two and enjoy a little extra space. (About midway through your child’s first school year, you realize that he or she has a far more active and exciting social calendar than you do.) There’s no sense in getting jealous over their social appointments; if you’re going to get anything, it had better be the car keys.

The Tunnel of Summer is long, so traversing it without gnawing on each other calls for injections of entertainment along the way. If you can afford to be at home with your kids, it usually means that you ARE the entertainment. “You want to go to the pool…again? Why don’t you kids whip up a batch of cookies instead?” This might explain why the stay-at-home contingent in my family puts on pounds in the summer the way a good hiker packs on gear. By summer’s end, our tunnel is so snug that the first evacuee has to pry the others out.

No matter how short or long a tunnel is, it is sure to be peppered with sibling squabbles. In such tunnels, each spat echoes more. Twice, in separate years and for separate pairs of kids, I have had to enforce a no-communication for a day rule to quash the bickering. (“Don’t look at, play with, or talk to each other!”) But that’s another story.

Somewhere along these annual tunnel tours, it has dawned on me that I am not normal. (Or did the kids implant that idea?) “Mom, why can’t you be normal? Why do you have to be such a hawk, watching what we do all the time?” I realize that watching those home/fashion improvement shows on TLC aren’t entirely deleterious to the teen girl’s health, but why can’t they go and simultaneously improve their room’s décor and their wardrobes by picking up the clothes in their bedroom? Or perhaps they could learn to fix their beds properly, so the fitted sheet isn’t hair-triggered to spring off at the slightest provocation, such as breathing or shutting the door?

And then there are the middle boys, with an uncanny and almost clairvoyant ability to detect every movement of SpongeBob SquarePants on the Nickelodean channel. Not that all TV is bad, but again, that is another story. After the first half-hour’s dose of that poriferan’s million-dollar monotonic laugh, my response is to turn off the TV and have them grab a sponge and bob over to the sink to help with the dishes. (Then it’s my turn to laugh.)

I know this is going to sound old-fashioned, but when my kids are home, I tend to extract work from them. How else did I have time to fritter away, writing silly columns? Maybe that is why I dread summer’s end more than any recalcitrant pupil. All these years, my children have been my labor of love. At this stage, I’m hoping they’ve developed a love of labor.

My seventeen-year-old was Chief Laundress, in charge of getting all the laundry done while the nine year-old was her noble aide, bringing down heaps of dirty clothes and occasionally putting away clean towels. Very often, the noble aide would forget to empty just one hamper…usually that of the Chief Laundress. Too bad we couldn’t have harnessed the sparks that flew; they could have dried an entire load of towels. Ah, it was a summer with no laundry to do and someone else to blame if it wasn’t completely done. (In over twenty years of marriage, I have never been able to accomplish this feat.)

At night, the Chief changed gears and dramatically read aloud stories to the youngest two until everyone else, including parents with such urgent matters to justify offloading all domestic duties onto their kids, stopped what we were doing to listen to Roald Dahl come to life.

Or did I dread the end of summer because my fourteen-year-old daughter loves to cook and had taken over lunch and dinner duties? Of course, there was the small matter of that yearbook debt she was working off. (Her high school yearbook was $85. The first used car my father bought in 1972 cost him $75.) At any rate, this girl has expanded our menu beyond the four things I repeatedly make. Everybody was excited at each mealtime. Was I jealous? Please. I was the most excited one.

Also, for some reason, my second daughter is the only one that my stubborn (oops, I mean “strong-willed”) two-year-old boy listens to. She doesn’t threaten or pinch him to extract compliance - at least, I’ve never noticed any marks. (Just kidding, friendly Social Services people.) It’s just this frightening eye/voice thing she can do that I thought my father had a monopoly on. One night this summer, she extracted Cling-Boy from my body and got him in the habit of going to bed on a schedule. Not only does he now actually go (away) to bed, he even sleeps through the night. Why is everybody smarter than I am?

I miss my twelve-year-old son with all the food allergies who unloaded the dishwasher (sometimes three times in a day) and loaded the breadmaker to prepare his own dinner rolls. He even entertained the two youngest with this original “play” dough. And I also miss my nine-year-old boy who put out all the trash and diligently sorted all the recycling. He would put on puppet shows and make all the voices to delight the little ones. And although there was always an uncomfortable element of danger, the boys could keep my five-year-old girl and the two-year-old terror engaged for hours.

I can’t believe I put my tiny five-year-old who has only just hit forty pounds onto that gigantic school bus. The little guy feels his kindergartener sister’s absence the most acutely. Not only do they share a room (and now a bedtime), they also share a little table for snacks and coloring, and giggles and games all day long. Even if they fought, at least they kept each other occupied.

On the first day of school, when five of my kids headed out the door, excited to see old friends or thrilled to greet new adventures, the little guy and I were left at home with each other to get reacquainted with some household chores. It’s the sudden emptiness and the quiet, together with my now friendless and therefore clingy boy, that feel altogether too much to handle. Left behind to survey the disaster zone left in the wake of everyone’s rush to leave, that’s when I feel the jealous pang.

To be honest, there are certain things I don’t miss: chiefly, the inability of any of these gifted and mechanically inclined kids to replace an expended roll of toilet paper. Who am I kidding? What was I thinking? Summer is over.

My Big Sigh is not from relief; it is one that selfishly misses the kids and their charm, their rascally personalities, and their chaos and commotion. Maybe I should have made plans to take the little guy out or to get together with friends, after all. At least in that, I could have appeared to be normal.