Do my kids love me or my Mastercard?

I took Parker to the junior high to do registration stuff the other day. He is going into 8th grade. Holy Cow!! When did this child grow up because I certainly haven't aged 13 years since he was born! Since he was an 8th grader who knew everything and no longer a 7th grader who needed help from his mother, I just followed him from table to table while he did his registration stuff...ordered a yearbook, picked up his schedule, got an id card picture taken, etc, all without my help. "Mom, I can do all the talking." Oh, yeah, I helped, I followed him around writing checks for all of it. He turns 13 next week and I'm wondering, is this what it is like to be a mother of a teenager? Following them around, checkbook in hand, while they do their own stuff without my help? Sounds expensive.

Emily Watts is a favorite author and speaker of mine. She writes for a blog that I enjoy called Light Refreshments Served. She posted this the day after my checkbook/junior high experience:
"I am looking at my calendar and realizing that August starts tomorrow. It has thrown me into a state of near-panic. Where did my summer go? I’ve just barely acclimated myself to its being July, and now, in a few more hours, it won’t be.

This has only reinforced what I know to be true about time: It speeds up as you get older. You really start to feel this as a mom when your kids get into junior high. They’ve been moseying along, six or seven years in the same school, basically the same routines, the same teachers, even the same body (just a little taller each year). Then WHAM! they’re in seventh grade, and before you can breathe again they’re finishing ninth grade and heading off to a whole different school and really a whole different life in almost a whole different body - and you’re running along behind saying, “Wait, wait, I’m still trying to figure this out!”

Well, I have a theory about why time works this way. What if it’s a relativity thing? Think of it this way: When you’re 10 years old, one year is a whole tenth of your life. When you’re 50 years old, it takes FIVE years to equal a tenth of your life. So, at age fifty, five years actually seem to speed by in the same space it used to take one year to pass when you were ten.

I think it’s nice to have a logical, mathematical explanation of a phenomenon that I’m never really going to have any control over anyway. It makes me feel slightly less crazy. Maybe that’s the ultimate symptom of my delusion - that I’m starting to make sense to myself."

Thanks, Emily. I agree with your theory!!

And seriously, people who think that Christmas is the most expensive time of year have never gotten children ready for going back to school. I thought about adding everything up but then decided I would be happier if I didn't. New clothes (that 13-year-old is all of a sudden picky about brands so Target will no longer suffice), new shoes (same problem here), new socks, new underwear (ok, only because they are on sale right now, you really don't need new underwear to go back to school), backpacks, lunch boxes, waterbottles, new contact lenses for the boys (yes, big deal at our house, HUGE), and school supplies. Which I gripe about every year. I mean what are my tax dollars going towards if I have to send paper and pencils to school with my children? And folders and scissors and glue and rulers and colored pencils and crayons and markers and ziplock bags and white board markers and tissues and antibacterial hand wipes. Come on, this won't even fit in their backpacks. And Open House is coming up and you know that the teachers will ask for more supplies then. as well as beg for supplies throughout the year.

Ok, that all just seemed to pour out and sound a little cranky. But as I mentioned in a prevoius post, tis the season to be cranky!