Moms even more frantic with kids in school

A woman who has small children whispered to me, like she was confessing that she dreams of running away with the UPS man, that some days she can’t wait until her kids are in school and she can have a little peace and quiet at home alone.

I just gave a loud snort and shook my head. Now there’s an urban myth.

Those exhausting years when your children are small and demanding, and you live on a schedule of oatmeal for breakfast, “Sesame Street” in the afternoon, and a bath before bedtime, are the salad days.

Your children take naps. They go to bed by 8 p.m. They don’t call you to say, “Hurry! There’s a field trip. Everyone’s waiting on the bus and the teacher’s mad,” and then ask you to bring their bathing suit (it’s under their bed wrapped in a damp towel,) a sack lunch, and $25 (no checks) to the school.

I admit I cried a little when my baby started first-grade. After all, I’d had a child at home with me for 17 years and I liked it.

But, there was another part of me that was ready to fly solo. I wanted something for myself.

Finally, I thought, I would be home alone. I would put them all on the school bus, tidy up the house, and spend the rest of my day writing.

My life would run as smoothly as a well-oiled machine.

Things didn’t turn out the way I planned.

First, nobody takes the bus, which comes every morning at 7:30, because there’s no such thing as a regular school day.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Friday mornings, school starts at 8:15. On Wednesday and Thursday mornings, school starts at 8:55.

Unless it’s band practice, then school starts at 7 a.m. on Monday and Wednesday but not Friday. If it’s track season, they need to be there at 6:45 a.m. on Friday.

If someone is in trouble because they haven’t turned in any homework since Thanksgiving, they need to be there when the doors open.

Most mornings I‘ve been up for hours and put 20 miles on the car before I pour milk on my cereal, and as soon as I do, the phone starts ringing.

My daughter is the queen of “I forgot.” She straps on a 30-pound backpack every day and still doesn’t remember half of what she needs.

After making several trips — in one week — to deliver her forgotten violin one time, permission slip another time, and finally the money for her class picture, I’d had it. I motioned for her to come out into the hall.

“Listen, Honey, I need you to check something, and it’s really, really important,” I said. “Put your hands on your throat and feel around the top of your neck.” She did as I asked.

“Do you feel anything, anything at all? This is important.” She pressed her fingers into her skin, looked at me with huge eyes, and whispered, “I don’t feel anything.”

“Well, that’s just what I was afraid of,” I said. “You forgot your head, too.” She wasn’t amused.

With one child in college, one in high school, one in middle school, and a third-grader, the hours I thought would be leisurely and solitary are usually spent trying to answer emergency calls from the school, speed-clean the house, pick up groceries and, if I’m lucky, get a little work done.

After school there are dentist’s appointments, piano lessons and basketball practice. It’s always something, and it always involves me.

With all of my children in school, I still do exactly what I did when they were all babies and I wanted a minute to myself. I work late at night, and on weekends, and early in the morning before they get out of bed.

“You’d better relax and enjoy it while you can,” I told the mother of the preschoolers. “Pretty soon you’ll be home alone and then you won’t have a minute’s peace.”