School Year Resolutions

This week is the week I've been waiting for all summer.

By the time Friday rolls around, I will have two school boys in my house. It's almost bittersweet.

(Mini Me starts next Tuesday.)

Fall, at least as it pertains to the school year, is in the air. Which means it's time for the (now) 2nd Annual....

Snarky Mom's School Year Resolutions
(Last year's weren't so much an entertaining blog entry as they were my mantra for everyday life. I mostly did okay with them. Perhaps there were two months in-a-row that Larry Potter missed his snack day, but he had a long term sub, so I deem it okay.)

1.) Be aware of their school lunch accounts before they go into debt in the cafeteria. I swear, the lunch ladies trying to collect are worse than New York City mobsters. After two days with a negative balance, they make my boys eat cheese sandwiches instead of the regular lunch. What? Do they think that I'm not good for the money? Perhaps it's just my children, since I've been known to personally threaten the Food Services Directors. Either way, I resolve to do better so my kids don't end up paying my vendetta being embarrassed in the lunch line.

I aspire to be as happy in my kitchen as this family.

2.) Get up before my children and be all June Cleaver-y. I know LP can pour his own breakfast and get his clothes on without me. Except much of the time, he doesn't. So he ends up going to school in yesterday's clothes, complaining that he's hungry, and making little Jimmy's mom - who has track marks and lives in the motel across the street - look like Mom of the Year. My kids have a mom, a pretty decent one, and it's time for them to not look like they spent the night on the park bench.

3.) Enforce homework/silent reading/whatever else your teachers have told me to do time. In the past, homework has always been completed before the kids got to school. Which is great, until you find out that it was usually done frantically before or during breakfast. And silent reading logs? They may as well been lawn care coupons left in the door; we never used them and most often threw them out when the pile got to big. Not any more! Homework will be done before dinner, as I prepare the meal, like so many warm and fuzzy Stouffers commercials have told me that's what I should aspire to. Which also means I will be preparing a hot meal each night. Two birds, one stone!

Wish me luck, folks. I want to hear from the moms that do all of this without a public list and shaming. How do you do it? What's your resounding motivation? Is there wine involved? I need all the help I can get (before the school intervenes).