Happy new school year!
In this still relatively new year, I am happy to report (see what I did there?) that I’m feeling relatively content.
I am, in fact, cautiously optimistic.
This is par for the course with me, of course, being known to my friends as something of the Silver Linings Poster Child, but considering the current state of my finances – here again I am a Poster Child, but this time for the Janu-Worry Brigade – I think it’s rather commendable.
Like parents all over the country, our teenage boys returned to school earlier this month for a new school year, and like many others, we were – massively – caught on the hop by those back-to-school factors that affect even the best parental planner in, shall we say, a stressful manner.
Let me outline, for those readers who may not (yet?) be familiar with the Back-to-school Panic Period, how one’s finances are liable to be disrupted – and the resultant stress it can cause…
Input: Grade 10 school camp (payment due)
Comment (Inwardly): “Argh, my head-in-the-sand ostrich approach on this one soooooo did not work.”
Comment (Out loud): “Don’t worry sweetheart, it’s all paid up and confirmed.”
Comment (Inwardly): “I seriously think we’re looking at many days of beans on toast for dinner coming up between now and month end. Oh well; I work in the communications field; I will just have to find a way to present it as the latest health fad, or something… and not just that we are heading into Broke Territory…”
Input: Textbooks and stationery
Comment (Inwardly): “Dear Lord, I hardly *ever* treat myself to a new book for the pure joy of reading, and here I am watching the money I borrowed from the bank – expressly for additional going-back-to-school purposes – going up in flames every time we set foot in another Preferred Supplier venue.”
Comment (Out loud): “Okay we’ve gone through the lists; at least we can double up a bit on Child Number #Two using Child Number #One’s former textbooks that we saved from previous years; aren’t we just clever and organised! Let’s see what the other parents are saying on the WhatsApp group – oh look, someone is selling this one second-hand for a fraction of the price… Ah man, gone already to someone quicker than us…
“Okay we’ll get them each their new relevant Shakespeare copies in February, and for now they can just use these two anthologies that have been on the bookshelves for decades…. Luckily we’ve got two; one each; quite impressive really that Shakespeare is still on the school curriculum…
“I wonder when schools, in their wisdom, stopped supplying the textbooks; I’m sure it wasn’t like this when we were kids; I don’t remember my parents running around like (bleepity bleep) manic idiots every January, do you… ?
“What, MORE books that we forgot about? Aren’t we (bleepity bleep) done already?
“NO I’M AFRAID THIS IS YOUR SHAKESPEARE COPY FOR THE MOMENT please just be GRATEFUL that we’ve been able to make a plan; here is your anthology, and here is your Shakespeare anthology, and just remember that we still need to eat between now and the end of January and why the (bleepity beep) do we have two copies of Romeo and Juliet on the shelf that no one at all is using this year, and zero copies of The Tempest (bleep)?”
“Are we done yet? Are we really and truly finally done? Oh… well done us! (High-five-ing moment)
“And now I think I deserve some wine…”
Input: School uniform
Request: “Mom, please can you get our blazers dry-cleaned before we go back?”
Comment (Inwardly): “Ack, in this particular instance I think I preferred things – at least from a financial perspective – when you were both little grubs who didn’t care about keeping your uniforms nice…”
Comment (Out loud): “Yes of course love, well remembered and thanks for reminding me in time; we’ll go today.”
Comment (Inwardly): “At least their uniforms miraculously still fit from late last year and the growth spurts seem to have slowed down a bit… for now…”
School lunches
Comment (Inwardly, of course): “My darling, are you quite, quite sure that you actually need three square meals a day? Could we perhaps start looking at just one? And you can eat it at school so you can have brain nourishment for your lessons?
“Also, are you quite, quite sure that you don’t have a tape worm? How is it possible for you to eat so much and not put on any weight at all around your middle? Why are you, in fact, getting thinner? How I wish it was me…
“What is your secret? Can we bottle it and allow me to A. lose the excess weight around my own middle? and B. sell the bottled product and finally make the small fortune that will allow me to live in the style to which I’d like to become accustomed – while flaunting my tiny, toned middle all over social media advertising, of course?”
Comment (Out loud): “Sweetheart, what fruit do you want me to buy for extra snacks? And by the way it needs to be grown, packaged and transported locally. And we are supporting our local greengrocer, and not the expensive retail chain that I don’t shop at any more.”
Hair cuts
Request from Child #Two: “Mom, so school has started and I think I’d like a haircut – can we please go to the hairdresser this week?”
Comment (Out loud): “Hmmmmmmm…. (while waving around a tin of beans) Please ask your grandmother to take you…?”
Request from Child #One (a few days later): “Hey mom, can I also get my hair cut please? And I’m thinking of maybe cutting it really short again; what do you think?”
Comment (Out loud): “You know, you’ve spent the whole of last year growing it out… it would be such a shame to stop now, don’t you think…?”
Request from Child #One (a few days later): “Hey mom, so I’m back at school now and I think I’m finally over growing my hair after all – it’s a pain tying it up every day – can I get my hair cut soon please after all?”
Comment (Out loud): “My sweetheart, are you quite, quite sure you want to cut it after all that time growing it out? Yeeeees? You’re quite sure…? Okay (while waving around another tin of beans), please ask your grandmother…”
So there you have it – levity aside, I’m thrilled that my boys are back at their school, for which I have the highest regard. One of the main reasons I work as hard as I do is to give them a great education, and I couldn’t be happier with their teachers and the culture of the school in general, not to mention the academic standard.
Matthew is in Grade 10 this year (Standard 8, as it was known in the ancient ways), while Liam is in Grade 12 (Standard 10) and will write his Matric exams in November. It’s a milestone year indeed, and it’s arrived so fast!
Pause for nostalgia and a quick trip down memory lane, when they both were in primary school elsewhere… As they say in the classics: “Don’t they grow up so fast?”
Pause to wipe small tear surreptitiously from right eye.
Anyway, fast-forwarding back into 2023: now that we can all breathe again – at least for the moment – I can look back and acknowledge that the back-to-school planning this year definitely seemed a little more manic than usual, and the Janu-Worry elements kicked in quite hard.
I do think it still had a lot to do with ongoing post-Covid economics.
I venture to say – with a little additional cautious optimism – that there are definitely some green shoots coming through in my working world, but some of them still seem to be in the woods, and not in my particular front garden.
But I live in hope, and with a metaphorical watering can in my hand – as well as a head that is always planning my next move.
Now: a small request to the universe follows.
If we could just please stop at Janu-Worry in the next short while, without entering its follow-up cruel step-sister month known as Febru-Worry, I will be perfectly content, and ready to tackle the rest of 2023 in due course.
And perhaps broaden the dinner menu once again.
Editor’s note:
The above is a more-or-less accurate depiction of recent events, although a small amount of artistic licence may have been allowed in the interests of storytelling.
It is an indisputable fact, however, that more baked beans than usual have featured in the family’s recent menu planning.
thoughtsfromthepanda 