<p>Missy- Yup, 10 years of summer rec swim team, at times with three kids swimming, youngest 6un, keeping track of the kids to swim in relays whilst trying to actually enjoy your kid swimming</p>
<p>I recall one summer with a 4-7-9 year old at the small pool (less lanes than the other locations) and 105F, all the kids were cooling off in the lake, I thought I would barf or die or both and the kids were fried from the heat and the sun. I do miss the comeraderie of swim team, seeing all the friends six days a week. One kid swam in HS and one took rec classes at university and could not believe what amazing shape they were in as little kids.</p>
<p>I found swim & gym meets to be very similar in the time commitment and time spent competing, but swim team let the entire family share the pain :D</p>
<p>I don’t live in California but somehow managed to be involved in building a Roman villa.</p>
<p>I don’t mind not arguing with lunch monitors and their higher ups about whether my kids needed to have their coats zipped up. Geez, if they are cold they’ll zip up their jackets! YOU are cold because YOU aren’t moving. They are!</p>
<ol>
<li> Getting up at 5:00 am to take child to swim practice or to make sure she’s up and ready to drive herself to school. (This might not end as younger brother is now swimming.)</li>
<li> Last minute, must do immediately, unexpected errands and requests: ie “Mom, the string on my viola broke. Can you run by the store and pick up a new one. I have to have it tomorrow.”<br></li>
<li> The back pack in the middle of the kitchen floor. There is a mud room for that!<br></li>
<li> Worrying until she gets home. I know next year will bring a new set of worries, but I can pretend for awhile that her first year away will be stressfree.</li>
</ol>
<p>Marian, how incredibly frustrating it must have been to deal with those school policies on an extended basis. I admit to have given my kids a couple of Motrin to keep in their pockets for later in the day. I figure, if they’re suspended for that, I’ll be glad to tell the world about their astonishing offense.</p>
<p>I agree with the stupid, zero tolerance, no Rx, no Advil allowed policy. A teen girl with cramps can’t carry some OTC meds? Better yet, she can be expelled??</p>
<p>I will not miss seeing her stress out over the overwhelming amount of homework!</p>
<p>BTW, here in CT, kids can carry their meds provided an MD order and parent OK is on file - AND if the school nurse feels the child is responsible to do so.<br>
I’m a nurse at the middle-school level and I encourage self-adminstration as much as possible. That Epipen - or Albuterol - in my office isn’t going to do the child any good if he or she is on the other side of the building.</p>
<p>Sooo happy to have attended my last high school talent show. The school unfortunately allows everyone to participate, regardless of actual talent. This year the extravaganza lasted two hours and 40 minutes. I’m always thrilled when D sings in public, and a handful of others were great, but then there were the unintelligible rappers, the girl group I will forever think of as The Three Tortured Cats, and so many others.</p>
<p>(We’re also in CT, and but our schools don’t allow kids to carry meds, period, so I guess it’s a local decision. Not that I bother following stupid rules. D uses her inhaler as needed and no teacher would think of objecting. I’ve sent her to school with Advil many times–she just takes it in the bathroom stall, using the water bottle in her purse.)</p>
<p>Three Tortured Cats - that must have been horrible!</p>
<p>I will definitely NOT miss:</p>
<ol>
<li>Arguing with the school principal that a kid can not be placed into a 9th grade math class just because she was doing well in math last year and the 8th grade math was hard to fit into her schedule.</li>
<li>Signing school trip permission forms asking the same stupid questions every time the kid has to go on a field trip.</li>
<li>The pile of books, papers, etc. on the floor in the living room. “Mom, the cat barfed on my homework - can you write a note to my teacher?” A note about what? That the homework is not biohazardous?</li>
<li>The WASL and the stupid Culminating Project.</li>
</ol>
<p>Since our retrospective is including the full K-12 year: How about the phase of “lice checking”? I (knock on wood) seem to have a genetic code that repells the critters since we evaded an actual invasion–but there was a several year span when we were always on alert and teams of moms were trained by the school to “head check” everyone bi-weekly. Garbed in their gloves with chopsticks to parse the hair they were quite a sight. And there was the time a mom called, the day AFTER a birthday party at my house that had involved switching hats in a game with my husband, to report her daughter had been found “occupied” My husband studied his head for weeks…</p>
<p>Agreed on the lice! Though youngest is 10, so we are still going through it each year. I am determined to get through the school years unscathed. So far so good. At the first report we have D2 bring in a trash bag for her winter coat, because the kids go to morning and afternoon activities in the gym and just throw their coats in piles. No wonder it spreads. It’s not just the younger kids, though. We had a fairly big outbreak in the HS this year as well.</p>
<p>When S1 was little we invited a classmate over to play one Saturday. His Mom dropped him off a bit late. When she picked him up late that afternoon she informed me that they’d been late because they were at the pediatrician beforehand, getting diagnosed with pinworm (thanks for the heads-up).</p>
<p>Lice! My kids never got them, but their two best friends got them regularly. Once my younger son got sent home with dandruff. I took them to the friend’s Mom (who happened also to be a doctor) and asked her to double check since I was pretty sure our nurse was wrong as indeed she was.</p>
<p>"3. The pile of books, papers, etc. on the floor in the living room. “Mom, the cat barfed on my homework - can you write a note to my teacher?”</p>
<p>Can relate to this one. In our house the pile of the backpacks is in the kitchen. Dropped off D2 at school one morning, and got back into the house to hear the phone ringing. When she opened her backpack she discovered that D1’s puppy had pooped in it. Luckily it was a tiny puppy…</p>
<p>somemom, I’ll second you on that one. Sounds like DS’s sport. I’ll just add spending the whole 180 seconds praying that your kid doesn’t get hurt.</p>
<p>Yes, though I missed the football games this year, I don’t miss that sick feeling when S2 would come trotting off the field holding his arm, shoulder,hand or with blood running down his arms.</p>
<p>echo the missing dishes and the schoolwork piled in ALL of the common areas of the house also saying goodbye to middle school for good this June!</p>
<p>I know the missing dishes will continue to be an issue but at least now I will know which kid to pin it on.</p>
<p>I will not miss the soccer coach who would rave about my D then her bench w/o explaining why or coaching her to improve.</p>
<p>I will not miss the sniping that I get:
“shouldn’t your daughter be making her own lunch, registering herself for the SAT, etc…” </p>
<p>Jeez, between school work, sports and volunteer activities the kid is working 15 hour days. She is so tired, I hate to wake her up in the mornings (yes, I do that for her, too.).</p>
<p>I wake mine up in the morning too. Won’t miss it!</p>
<p>I WILL miss:
1- All day volleyball tournaments
2- Driving to school in the morning together (40 minutes alone with her)
3- Driving home from school after practice (55 minutes alone with her)</p>