16 Reasons This Mom Can't Wait For the Last Day of School

My daughter's bus comes at the ungodly hour of 7:27 every single morning, meaning I have to drag her tired, grumpy, however cute little bum out of bed at 6:30. I'm sure once Summer hits and she doesn't need to be up, she'll start deciding to wake me even earlier, but at least then we can lounge in bed for an hour without the pressures of a lengthy morning to-do list.

Why, oh why, six- and seven-year-olds need daily homework is beyond me, but for some reason, my daughter's teachers seem to think it's a great idea. I won't miss the cajoling and threatening it's going to take to get her to sit down and complete even more schoolwork after a long day.

I've tried many different tactics to get my daughter dressed in the morning without drama, but at least once a week, we somehow end up screaming at each other because she's decided she doesn't own a single piece of clothing that's fit for her classmates' viewing. During the Summer, I don't care if she lives in her pajamas.

Am I the only parent that's forced to run a mental checklist of everything my daughter puts in her backpack on a daily basis, knowing that half of it will very likely not come home with her? Here's a shout-out to all the water bottles, accessories, fidget spinners, and yes, even shoes, that we've offered up to the lost-and-found gods.

In reality, I know that packing my daughter's lunch isn't that time-consuming of a task, mostly because I don't make anything resembling an adorable Hello Kitty-styled bento box (peanut butter and jelly and squeezable applesauce is more my thing), but still, her empty lunch box mocks me every single day, and I dream about the drama of discovering we're out of juice boxes or prepackaged bags of pretzels.

When you know your kid's alarm (and your own) is going off at 6:30 a.m. every single morning, you better believe bedtime is set in stone, at least in your mind. Your kids? They don't seem to understand that early to bed, early to rise correlation, and you better believe they're going to fight you on it, even when they can barely keep their eyes open. Summer means I don't turn into a raving lunatic when I realize my kids are up an hour too late, and I prefer the nonraving version of myself.

I made the mistake of being sucked into my daughter's school's PTA this year, which means on top of work, handling a toddler, and parenting a first grader, I also got to do fun things like design our school's bulletin boards and plan a BINGO night for 500 people on a Tuesday. I learned my lesson and will remember my new "just say no" PTA policy for the next school year.

My daughter's bus comes at 7:27 a.m., which means that every single morning between 7:23 and 7:26, you'll probably find me screaming at her to get her shoes and coat on, find her backpack, and get the hell out of the house. Because lord knows, I have no desire to pack up my toddler and make the 5-minute drive to her school.

I love the bus, but on occasion, I'm forced to pick up my daughter from school when she has an appointment or an after-school activity, and that's when the awkward mom talk begins . . . every single time. There's nothing fun about being stuck with a mom you barely know and frankly have no desire to get to know while waiting for your kid. Even worse? When she obviously doesn't get that you're staring at your phone to avoid her.

The lice letters, the tales of classmates vomiting in the hallway (my daughter told me two of those last week alone!), the constant sniffles, coughs, and sneezing . . . I need a break from the germ-infested Petri dish that is elementary school.

I'm not a big fan of eating right when I wake up and neither are my kids, but studies say that a healthy breakfast is necessary for them to learn and develop best, so guess who's yelling at her kids to please, please, please, eat their breakfasts every single morning at 7 a.m.? Yep, that's me, but during Summer, we can all wait until we're actually hungry to pull out the Lucky Charms.

Not only does our elementary school require us to bring our kids a lunch every day (OK, they can also buy hot lunch, but ewww), but we also have to pack a freaking snack, which means that before 7:30 a.m., I've made my children approximately six meals, a reality I'm looking forward to getting a Summer break from.

I get approximately 10-1,000 emails from my daughter's school each week, a number so overwhelming that I often decide not to read any of them (and then kick myself when I miss important info). I can't wait for the deluge to stop for a few months, along with my guilt about not being on top of it!

It's not that I don't love an activity that means my daughter is even more entertained and occupied during the day, but keeping track of all those activities can drive a mom bananas. Is it Monday, meaning she has to be picked up at 3:20 after art class? The third Thursday of the month, when she has Girl Scouts until 3:30? Or Friday, when she has one hour after school before soccer practice starts? Who cares?! It's Summer!

If only the school would color code the papers we actually have to pay attention to. Instead, my kids come home with stacks of paperwork and permission slips every day, with inconsequential crafts and worksheets mixed in with vital forms that I can only hope I don't throw in the recycling bin. Is this really the best system? I think not, but it's the one we're stuck with during the school year.

I get that kids thrive on a schedule, and truthfully, their parents probably do, too. But after months of early wake-up calls and superscheduled dinner and bedtimes to make those wake-up times less miserable, aren't we all ready for the laid-back, unstructured days of Summer? When breakfast can be at 10 a.m., the pool is the only thing on the day's agenda, and bedtime is a suggestion, not an imperative? Summer, let's live it up!