The Real Secret to Staying Sane During Back to School Chaos

hipstamatic

In the rush to get school supplies (and complete the ten million other necessary tasks to get ready for a new school year), I feel it would be helpful to have a back-to-school list to keep mothers sane. I write about it here, and would love to hear ideas from you – real and imagined – that might help moms through the first few weeks of school without losing our minds.

And, hey – who says the kids should be the only ones with the cute notebooks, folders and writing pads? The folks at Carolina Pad make some of the cutest school and office supplies around, and they’re going to give a little bundle away to Amy Mac readers! Leave a comment by August 31 to be entered.

The photo in this blog entry was taken with my iPhone with a very groovy application called Hipstamatic which allows you to create retro photographs with your iPhone camera – check it out!

XO-Amy Mac

5 comments:

Heather said...

Back to school hoopla is overrated! I say skip the first week of school altogether.

Lauren Muzzy said...

I love your article about remaining sane as we attempt to get our kids off to school. A few other thoughts:

There is always one child in our household (my 15 year old) that insists on making the rest of us late. But we have a clever solution to this problem. We open the garage door (which is right below her bedroom), head out to the car, and beep the horn twice. If she doesn't show up at the second beep, we leave without her. Just moments later, she makes a frantic phone call to us and I say, "Sorry, Sweetie, but you really must learn how to be on time." This only happened once last year and it was a valuable lesson to learn since she had to stay home and then make up the class work. (How quickly they forget. I'm sure we will be doing this again during the first two weeks of school this year)

I believe one of the greatest wishes we all have as mothers would be a way to drop off our kids at school without using the car pool lane. If my car could just turn into a helicopter for that last leg of the trip...No one would notice my car landing on the far end of the roof of the school...Then, I would be off again in a flash and I would get to work ON TIME. Now, that would really be something!

At least once a month I need to pick up my child early from school for an orthodontist appointment or something. It would be a dream come true if the school staff could escort my child out to my car and hand me the clip board to sign her out so that I wouldn't have to go in there. I say this because it really is like a jungle in high school. The last time I had to pick up my daughter at Roswell HS, a fight between two boys broke out right in front of me and hundreds immediately gathered around. Since that little incident, I have vowed never to enter the building again between class periods.

Finally, all mothers -- whether you work or not -- should plan a full day of relaxation and pampering once the kids are off to school that very first day. Hit the gym, relax by the pool, meet other mothers for lunch, etc. You have purchased, sorted, stacked, created, and cleaned everything under the sun in preparation for this day, so do something nice for yourself. This is a time for celebration! The kids are out of the house and doing something productive -- finally!

Shari said...

I've been drooling over the new school supplies all week. I always pick myself up some cute new paper product at this time of year! :)

Rebecka said...

cool photo!

Karin said...

Love the picture of Callie! And I love back-to-school supply shopping...as much for me as the kids. I am ready to "get it together" and get organized...emptying drawers, cleaning out folders, etc.