I would swear that when I was younger we had 12 full weeks of summer break.

‘Tis no longer the way of the public school district — at least not in this area.

For me, whether summer break is 8.4 or 12 weeks in length, its end is always festively and ceremoniously announced by the wondrous display of new boxes of crayons, animal-adorned Trapper Keepers, and pristine pencil boxes at Target. I mean, have you opened a new pack of crayons lately and intoxicated yourself with its scent? It’s euphoric. Almost as euphoric as the aroma of a freshly opened can of Play-doh.

And yet nowhere near as euphoric as the glory of the Back to School aisle.

At the mere sight of this mecca, I dream of again being a 5th grader with an official list of mandatory supplies — color-coordinated, of course.

Sadly, our kids don’t share my love of the Back to School aisle. For them, the onset of another year of education necessitates discussions over which extracurricular activities they aspire to have me drive them to and from each day…every day.

This afternoon, in order to allay my own cabin fever, I decided that we’d all run some errands for which we didn’t have to exit the heavily air conditioned car. Thank heavens for the drive-thru bank and drive-thru Starbucks which were strategically placed directly across from one another.

I instructed everyone to lather on the sunscreen, paying special attention to their left sides as we’d be driving East and the sun would be pounding through the left windows. As a conscientious mom, I believe it’s my duty to ensure that they aren’t any more wrinkled on their left side than on their right (they’ve shown, you know, that we age faster on the side of our face that’s most often closest to the car window; just ask Dr. Oz).

Once they got over their disappointment over learning that Sponge Bob would not be making an appearance on the car’s Satellite TV, the kids decided that this was the perfect opportunity to engage in their first school year discussion over which extracurricular activities they were each choosing.

Grace was very clear on hers: flag football. Jack agreed. He also would like to take art. George wants to do nothing more challenging than play lots of Wii. Only Henry had yet to publicly state his desires, which didn’t concern me in the least. He’d already told me that he wanted to do art and basketball. Flag football, art, Wii, and basketball. I can get on board with all of those.

I breathed a sigh of relief — a sigh long enough (and almost loud enough) to muffle the voice of sudden inspiration.

“Brazilian sword fighting,” declared Henry.

“I’m sorry?”

“Brazilian sword fighting,” Henry restated, as though that sort of request was perfectly normal.

“Henry,” I asked, “Where on earth did you hear about that?”

“On that store back there,” he answered, doing a 180 in his seat and pointing. “That martial arts place. It says on the door that they have Brazilian Sword fighting.”

“No, Henry,” corrected Grace condescendingly. “It’s Korean Sword Fighting.”

Henry momentarily pondered.

“That’s fine,” he remarked. “Korean Sword Fighting sounds just as good.”

The post ends here because I’ve been at a loss for words — written or otherwise — since.

***

How many extracurricular activities do you allow your children to be involved with during the school year? And how, if you have more than 1 child, do you manage the management of them all?