May: The Triathlon before summer.

The last week of school feels less like the end of an academic year and more like a coordinated stress experiment designed specifically for parents. Every email subject line suddenly sounds vaguely threatening. “Friendly Reminder!” they say, which is interesting because nothing requiring poster board, themed clothing, exact change, and a permission slip signed 4 seconds before the bus arrives has ever felt friendly to me.

Somewhere around May, schools collectively decide parents have been entirely too relaxed, and suddenly every single day has a "theme."

Pajama Day. Beach Day. Inside-Out Day. Dress Like Your Favorite Historical Figure Day. Respectfully, my children can barely remember to wear matching shoes. We are not emotionally or financially prepared to recreate Abraham Lincoln at 9pm on a Tuesday because someone finally checked the backpack.

And why does Spirit Week always happen at the BUSIEST POSSIBLE TIME OF THE YEAR. While I am at it, lets throw in a “Tomorrow is Tropical Tuesday!” Fantastic. It is currently 10:47pm and the closest thing my child owns to tropical attire is a faded monster truck shirt with a chocolate stain (please be chocolate.)

Then there’s Field Day, which sounds wholesome in theory but in reality feels like organized dehydration and sunburns. By 10am, someone is crying, someone has lost a shoe, someone desperately needs more sunscreen, and someone is injured. Teachers are out there doing the Lord’s work trying to maintain order while the children mentally already checked out sometime around Spring Break.

Backpacks this time of year become archaeological sites. You unzip one and discover fourteen crumpled papers labeled "IMPORTANT," three broken crayons, a granola bar fossilized beyond recognition, and a library book that appears to have survived a natural disaster. Every parent spends the final week of school moving through life with the low-grade panic of someone forgetting something critical.

Did I sign the form?

Was today the picnic?

Who needed a white shirt?

Why are there suddenly sixty five permission slips on the counter?

And underneath all the chaos and sarcasm and snack wrappers, something sneaks up on you.

Another school year is over.

Another version of your baby quietly disappeared while you were busy reminding them to brush their teeth and searching for missing Crocs. The too-little shoes get replaced. The handwriting changes. They stop reaching for your hand automatically. One day they need help opening yogurt tubes and the next they’re embarrassed when you wave too enthusiastically at pickup.

That part feels unfair, honestly. Because parenting is strange like that. You spend most days overwhelmed, overstimulated, counting down until bedtime while simultaneously grieving the fact that time refuses to slow down. You don’t realize how much changed until the year is already ending. First day of school pictures are instant tear jerkers next to these sudden adulty-looking last day pictures.

So yes, I will absolutely still complain about Spirit Week. I will complain about the last-minute projects and the seventeen reminder emails and the way summer somehow requires even more preparation than the school year itself.

But somewhere between panic-buying 30 popsicles at Target and digging through backpacks for missing forms, I’ll realize this year mattered. Even if most of my memories for the next 3 months involve sticky cupholders, racing between camps and sports, and hearing “Mom?” approximately four hundred times a day.

And in a few weeks, when the house is too loud, the snacks are disappearing at alarming speeds, and I’m hiding in the bathroom for a moment of silence, I'll try to remember we only get 18 summers.

xoxo

Madi