My children think that I am a horrible, awful, mean person because yesterday, I expressed to my husband that I am looking forward to them going back to school. Princess Pie especially thinks that I don't like her because I want her to be away from me. They don't realize that nothing could be farther from the truth.
I really did try to explain it to them last night. I told them how I love every moment that they are here with me, and loathe the next one that they are gone. They didn't believe me. I told them that every moment that they are gone, I miss them like crazy. Again, they didn't believe me. I am consoled only in knowing that parents everywhere are facing the exact same troubles that I am in right now and they survive it just fine.
Summertime, for our family is many things. First, we have the rise in electric bills. You guys think electric bills go up because you're running the AC on a higher setting in the summer, right? What about those winter heater bills? They don't rise up nearly as badly! No, the real secret is that your teenager is at home with at least one television blaring loud, (if not more) a stereo or two going, every light in the damned house is on, they're cooking with the stove and microwave every half hour, and I guarantee you that in each bedroom, there is at least one window that is wide open! So there you have it; the real reason your electric bill is doubling and tripling each summer.
Now, let's add on top of that the fact my kids are going through $800 to $1000 worth of groceries every single month of summer. During the school year, we do $200 to $300 a month in groceries for a family of four. During summers though, we're lucky if that's our weekly food bill. Remember the kids cooking something every half hour? So much of the time it never comes out right so they have to trash it and try again! Worse yet, is it does come out right so they have to make enough for the entire family to have five or six helpings of it. We want our kids to snack on fresh fruits and veggies instead of processed crap but fresh fruits and veggies is expensive! The processed crap is cheaper for a reason. So, it's either have extremely high food bills, or have low food bills and fat unhealthy children. I choose the high food bills.
Let's also talk about the loss of income and income opportunities during the summer. Most working parents work in an office building, or well, building of some sort anyway other than home. Not me. I work at home, and in addition to my employment, I am also a freelancer. When I want to pitch my business over the phone, I have to have a professional sounding environment. At the very least, a quiet environment. When you have kids home, you do not have a quiet environment!
My backup job is phone work as well, through LiveOps. You have to have a perfectly quiet environment for this. My kids are anything but perfectly quiet! So here they are running up the electric bill, running up the food bill, and I can't even compensate for it by working the emergency back up job.
So here we are now, three weeks until school starts. Every battery in the house has been used up. Neither the animals nor I have had one single moment of peace and quiet. The fridge and pantry are empty again even though we just went shopping on Saturday. After two months of no school, we are broke! I'm seriously considering finding some farm for the kids to go work on so they can earn school clothes money over here.
Teenagers everywhere, when your parents say "I can't wait until you return to school" remember this posting. Remember, it isn't that we don't want you around and don't enjoy your company. It's just that you're more expensive now than an entire group of infants would be!
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