BooHoo or Yahoo......

So it is that we come to that time of the year again...the first day of school.

So much anticipation and excitement for this day on the one hand and some not so happy feelings on the other.

My children's school hosts a "BooHoo or Yahoo" breakfast every year for parents after the children are all dropped off at their classrooms. There are many emotions a parent goes through during the first day of school whether it be your oldest child, your youngest child, your only child, or any of your children. Some parents are sad that their "babies" are in full-time school. Some are sad because perhaps it is their child's last year of lower school, middle school or high school. Whatever the stage is, there is undoubtedly an emotion that goes with it. While some are tearful and sad, there are others who look relieved and are shouting "yahoo's!" (although we all know they are secretly hiding their tears).

Summer is great. I love summer. I love that I don't have to get up and drive carpool. I love that there is no homework. I love that we are not doing the daily grind. But, with all that I love about summer, I also love the back-to-school season. It is not completely selfish on my part and I will tell you why.

Summer for our children means three months off from school...eighty-one days to be exact. My children are not campers (day or sleepover) so honestly, their days (with the exception of VBS and a couple other small things here and there) are totally void of any structure. While it is fun for a while. eighty-one days is just too long. 

They say that it takes twenty-one days to form a habit. Well I can tell you, eighty-one days allows for a lot of habits to be formed...and not all of them are good!

I like to imagine adults having eighty-one days off in a row. What in the world would happen to people then? Like I said, it is fun for a short period of time, maybe thirty days, but anything after that is not always good. In fact, the Bible warns us against idleness on many occasions.

"Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger." Proverbs 19:15

"Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not." 1 Timothy 5:13

After spending eighty-one days with my brood, I can tell you there was a lot of hunger (for something to do) going on and a lot of busybodies getting into each other's business and picking fights and many not so nice words.

Don't get me wrong, I love vacation time, but I also love the normalcy of structure. It is easy for me to say "Go back to school kiddos" because I am a stay-at-home mom and don't have a day job to go to, but I now have to struggle to keep myself occupied. Just like children can become idle during summer, we adults can become idle as well. And we all know that is the devil's playground. That's a BooHoo for sure!

So I will embrace Ecclesiastes 3:1 which says, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens" until our next season or vacation arrives.