June Already?

The Newsy Neighbour Magazine

June Issue 104

All Rights Reserved

www.thenewsyneighbour.com

As May winds down towards June, I find myself reflecting on a number of familiar refrains that happen about this time each year. You know, the usual:

“I can’t believe it’s June; this year is going so fast!”

“I can’t believe it’s June; what the heck are we going to do with the kids for the summer?!!”

“Wow, it’s June, I wonder if it’s ever going to rain this spring?”

“Wow, it’s June, I wonder if it’s ever going to stop raining this spring?”

“Oh man, Father’s Day again. I have no idea what to get him this year. Again.”

This spring has been a little different in our household as I attended my first Chestermere High School graduation, for my own kid, and I decided to move. At the same time. Either event would be exciting on its own but in the spirit of keeping things interesting I decided to kick it up a notch by scheduling both events on the same day.

Technically it wasn’t all my scheduling that did this; after all, I have no control over the schedule for grad. I did have some control over the move day but will blame that conflict on an inability to check my calendar prior to committing to things. Details… pfft!

For my son, May was extra stressful as he prepared for grad, final exams and moving, plus the added-on  stress of writing the provincial exam for his EMR (Emergency Medical Responder) certification (proud momma plug!). And in the spirit of “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”, he managed to schedule that for the same week, too.

Preparation for grad invoked a series of odd responses from the family members that were invited to attend the ceremony, ranging from a “sure! When and where?” from one set of grandparents to a “we need to know when it is; we have a very busy schedule” from the other grandparental set. When his older brother was asked if he was interested in attending the ceremony and the banquet, his response was, “Not in the least, but I feel like I should be”. Yes. Yes you should. His interest level moved up a tad when I, a) reminded him how many of his own ball games his younger brother had been dragged to over the years, and, b) told him he was off the hook for the banquet as long as he got his butt to the ceremony. Yup, brotherly love; it’s everything I always imagined…

The logistics of the ceremony got a bit dicey as both sets of grandparents decided they wanted to be taken to the ceremony, as opposed to get there themselves, due to concerns with mobility, parking and the logistics of finding each other in a crowd. Somewhere in the middle of arranging who was driving who, where everyone was meeting and which vehicle would hold everyone for each load, I realized my relationship with my parents has switched. Somehow I’ve become the adult that does the organizing and they… aren’t.

I guess that happens to everyone at some point. Looking back at my own grandparents, and their attendance at any of my “life events”, I realize it was my mom that organized them and got them there and it was my mom that we all turned to for logistic questions, so it’s nothing new, but… I can’t honestly pinpoint when my mom retired and I became Organizer of All Things Family. Me. The one who can’t manage to schedule a grad and a move in a different week, never mind a different day, is now, somehow, inexplicably in charge of Family Event Logistics.

We are probably doomed.

Or maybe not. The boy wrote his EMR exam, went to an adult job interview the day of his ceremony (there’s that apple again), attended his grad with all grandparents and his brother accounted for (with brother in dress clothes, no less), appeared at the banquet in a freshly dry-cleaned suit with a tie that matched his date’s beautiful dress (okay, his dad gets credit for making the tie happen) AND the move happened on schedule. Despite the moving truck breaking down after it was fully loaded. Which, I might add, was not my fault but did make getting the banquet on time a bit… interesting.

I wonder when I get to retire. Mom?