No foolin': Mom dreads start of school
As usual, the school year will begin with much kicking and screaming at my house.

This time, however, I’ll be hollerin’ the loudest.

Yep, that’s right. Put me down on the record. For the first time since I started having kids 14 years ago, I am dreading the start of the school.

Time was when I would camp out in front of the preschool like a 12-year-old hoping for Justin Bieber tickets.

When you have twin toddlers and your husband works 13- to 14-hour days like mine used to, you tend to take any child care super seriously.

Even last year, when my oldest boys were entering seventh grade and able to feed themselves the required 15 times a day, I looked forward to returning to our school routine.

I remember actually saying that last summer when curious folks would ask if we were ready for school to start.

 “Oh, you know it!” I’d cajole. “Too much air-conditioning and TiVo are good for mom but not for kids!”

Now we’re entering our last week of summer, and I’m getting more pouty by the minute.

I think it has something to do with the fact that my kids and I have had a pretty good time together this summer. Even little things have come to mean a lot.

For example, this has been our first summer to have a soundtrack. We actually like a lot of the same music and have had fun driving to the pool or Kroger while blasting “Nothing on You” by B.O.B featuring Bruno Mars or “Airplanes” by B.O.B (hey!) featuring Hayley Williams of Paramore.

It’s also been the summer I learned that nobody puts out a song by themselves anymore.

We’ve had weeks when we all were together and weeks when some of us left the nest to explore new places and people.

We’ve played baseball, basketball and football. We’ve played Marco Polo in a golf cart, and some of us barfed in two different states. My baby learned to swim, and I learned to text a little faster.

We went to a graduation, a funeral and a handful of birthday parties, passed on family treasures at a yard sale, taught kids’ Sunday school, and reunited with friends we hadn’t seen in 25 years.

I watched my kids plummet down a roller-coaster hill at 65 mph, practice tackling in full football pads on a 95-degree day and set a personal best in a 5K race. My husband even got a new job, and I see him a lot more than I used to.

That’s why I’m not exactly breaking down the schoolhouse door this year. I am not exactly excited about prompting kids to do homework day after day when “we’ve been having this same conversation for the past five years.”

I have not missed the stress of getting three boys fed, dressed and ready by 6:40 a.m. And I really just don’t want to mess with picking up any stinky kids from practice after school when it’s still 95 degrees.

I like that my refrigerator door is decorated with only a grocery list and a child’s watercolor instead of being cluttered with homework deadline reminders and club signup sheets.

It’s also why I’ll probably get misty the first time I’m driving alone and I hear a stupid Ke$ha song.

Jill Burgin calls her column “Joyride” because you never know where she’ll end up. E-mail her at tjburgin@comcast.net.