Twenty days remaining ...

While picking up a three-way lightbulb at Target the other day I had a wee bit o' panic when I walked by what used to be an outdoor furniture display but is now SCHOOL SUPPLY CENTRAL. (When did that happen?) Replacing patio umbrellas and floral-covered cushions are bins and boxes and cardboard carousels of pens and pencils and glue sticks and scissors and erasers.
This means one thing and one thing only: My summer break is about to end.
My life's stress is going to triple ... quadruple, perhaps.
During summer break, my biggest stress revolves around which car I'll be driving to the shopping plaza or grocery, considering the children are all licensed and working absurd shifts and in need of vehicular transportation. If they're off to work before I get out of bed -- I like to awaken at the crack of noon these days -- then I'm the one sans Chevy, or the sorry soul stuck with the gross car that smells like dirty dog paws.
A lesser summer stress concerns what I will eat for "breakfast": Shall it be something I have to cook (think omelette or Cream of Wheat) or something previously cooked, say, spaghetti or brussels sprouts adorned with congealed butter from the night before, that I can simply eat from the pan whilst standing in front of the fridge. Or, sometimes, someone drinks all the milk and doesn't replace it. That's summer stress, especially if there's a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and I'm feeling the cereal vibe. I've been known to have a bit of a meltdown when I reach for the jug and there's approximately a quarter teaspoon of milk remaining.
But when school is in session, when I go from being a mom of three kids to a school marm of 150 kids, well, then the stress level increases, let's just say, somewhat tremendously.
As a result, at the pool today I wasn't able to relax entirely. Oh, I tried. Lying face down on a floatie thingy, I imagined I was in the gentle part of the ocean, being lulled oh-so-tenderly, and then, without warning, a vision came to me of a seventh-grade boy ramming me with his boogie board (or whatever it's called). While inside making my lunch plate, instead of focusing on the awesome sandwich wrap I was assembling, my mind took a disturbing detour and reminded me of my school's load-'em-in/load-'em out cafeteria routine. Will I really be back to fourteen minute lunches?
Is it time again to learn 150 names and 150 learning styles?
To make parent contact sheets? To figure out which kids need preferential seating and modified lesson plans and alternative assessments?
In twenty days I'll be back to pantyhose and pumps and navy blue suits. No more flip-flops and swimsuits, shorts and wrinkled tees. I'll smell like Estee and the classroom ... the delicious sunscreen scent will have to stay in its bottle.
I'm likely to have a weird back-to-school dream tonight, which will, more than likely, feature a surly seventh-grade boy, a patio umbrella, a box of erasers and a three-way lightbulb.
That's how my dreams roll.