the first day of school

At 6:30pm the night before the first day of school, we decide Everett will use a shoe rack as a desk. 

(I started searching for an actual desk two weeks ago, apparently after everyone else in America bought theirs. Ikea: out of stock. Amazon: out of stock. Wayfair: out of stock. I even checked Crate & Barrel just for kicks—knowing full well I would never shell out $400 for a child’s desk. Purchase now and we'll ship when it's available. Estimated in early November. Well, then! I eventually found a desk I liked, and ordered it from a random website I’ve never heard of. It will be here mid-September, allegedly.)

Everett, ever the eternal optimist, can hardly contain his excitement as we move the shoe rack into his room. 

“Look, mommy! I can keep all my supplies on this shelf, and I can put my feet right there,” he says, pointing to the bottom tier. His pure delight over arranging school supplies on a shoe rack is wrecking me.

“Remember,” I tell him, “this is only temporary until your real desk gets here, okay?” 

He nods in understanding, gently placing his pencil box on the second shelf with care. 

“Mommy, am I going to get a desk, too?” 

I turn around to face Carson, who is set to start kindergarten in the morning. I’ve spent so much time figuring out where Everett is going to conduct third grade, I have given exactly zero thought to where Carson is going to work.

“You know what, buddy? We are going to find an extra special place for you to do school. Maybe down at the coffee table in the living room? We can keep the baby gate closed so Presley doesn’t bother you,” I say. 

He skips away to his sister, seemingly unbothered, and kisses her on the cheek. I’m still not used to his hair—or, should I say, lack thereof. We shaved his head last week after he took it upon himself to do a DIY haircut when nobody was looking.

The kids play for a bit by themselves while Brett and I draft out a schedule on a piece of paper, plotting our ideal shifts and marking when we’ll trade posts. We talk about childcare—how much we need, how much we can afford, how grateful we are for Mimi’s offer to watch the kids every other Monday. We agree to put away work and screens from 5-8pm on school nights. We agree to remain flexible, open-minded, patient and full of grace. We know when the baby drops her second nap—presumably any day now—we’ll have to start over from scratch.

We tuck the kids into bed, kiss their heads, tell them to get a good night’s sleep. I write the schedule on the whiteboard in the kitchen, knowing all of it is subject to change. 

***

Everett wakes up early and immediately organizes his shoe rack. He takes every item out of the school-provided materials bag, dividing them across the four tiers. Whiteboard on bottom. Workbooks, journals, folders and pencil boxes perfectly arranged in the middle two (one shelf for math; one for writing). His laptop rests on the top, surrounded by other essential items: a pencil sharpener, highlighters, eraser, bookmark, scissors, stickers, and of course—a laminated growth mindset reminder. Everything is meticulously laid out, along with six pieces of candy that were part of his Back to School survival kit. Starbursts to remind you that you’re a star! Smarties to remind you how much you’ll learn this year! Chocolate hugs to remind you that your teacher cares about you! 

Once his shoe rack actually resembles a desk, he tip-toes into our room to tell us he’s ready, whispering, “I’m so excited!”

Again, I am wrecked. 

We make cinnamon rolls for the occasion, and I glance at the whiteboard while they bake. Everett’s first zoom call is at 8:45; Carson’s is at 9. The baby will be awake during that time and I’m still not sure how all of this is going to work.

“Hurry up and get dressed, guys!” I holler from the kitchen, “I want to take a picture for the first day of school!”

I pull my camera out as Everett appears wearing a bright red t-shirt that says “Kansas City is Mahomes”—a shirt that, under different circumstances, I’d probably try to convince him to change out of.

“You look awesome,” I tell him.

At 8:42, the baby is running down the hallway clinking two bottles of nail polish in her hands as I hear my husband tell his coworkers, “Well, hey, I need to jump off the call—my kids start school today and I’ve got to help them set up their zoom calls.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever loved him more. While Brett sets Everett up, I get Carson situated in the family room at his own makeshift desk: the coffee table. Presley, trapped behind the baby gate, starts to wail. How dare you leave me alone?

I am climbing over the baby gate to console her when Brett comes running out of Everett’s room.

“His chromebook isn’t working … I’m going to let him use my laptop,” he says, reaching for the MacBook Pro sitting on the dining room table. 

I hear Everett yell from his room, “Daddy!!!! It’s 8:46!!!” 

With Presley on my hip, I glance at Carson one last time, who is sitting next to the coffee table waiting for instructions, looking bored. 

“Daddy will be right there to get you on zoom, okay, Car? I’m going to take Presley to her room so you guys can have some quiet.”

I pour a little bowl of dry cereal on my way, wondering how much time I can buy with Cheerios and a tea set. As it turns out, quite a while. 

Later I find Carson organizing his school supplies on the coffee table, lining pencils and notebooks and blocks in neat little rows, similarly to how Everett arranged the shoe rack. Part of his assignment is to take a picture of his “work station” and send it to the teacher. 

Once again, I am wrecked. 

“You know what, buddy? Come to think of it, we are going to get you a desk,” I tell him.

I hop online, determined to find something better than shoe racks and coffee tables. Within the hour I’ve lowered my standards, increased my budget, ordered two new desks and canceled the one set to ship in September. Done and done.

We juggle for the remainder of the day: zoom calls, projects, worksheets, what feels like 50 e-mails from teachers. The school district parent portal is down and the camera on Everett’s laptop doesn’t work. Brett and I are supposed to trade posts from 11am-12pm, but his boss schedules a meeting for 11:30, because of course. 

And yet: the day chugs along, as all days do. The boys make self portraits, I unload the dishwasher for the 47th time this week, the baby naps. Every break, I send the kids to the trampoline. Run around! Stretch your legs! I yell after them. At one point I walk outside to throw something in the recycling bin and I can hear them swapping first day stories as they skip around in circles, bags of goldfish crackers in their hands. They’re telling each other what happened on their zoom calls and I take a moment to silently grieve a first day of school occurring over pixels.

Brett and I debrief that afternoon, run through things we can do better tomorrow. Everett needs a new laptop. Carson needs a real place to work. Maybe I’ll take Presley for a walk from 9-9:30 so the boys can have a quiet house for their first calls?

After dinner, as promised, we head to McDonalds for McFlurries—a novelty treat they’ve never had before. Apparently we’ve been saving it for this moment.

“Hey, we never did heart tattoos today!” I notice, feeling a twinge of sadness over breaking our first day of school tradition. 

“Yeah, but we don’t have to do heart tattoos this year,” Everett says.

“Why not?” I ask.

He thinks for a second before answering, “Because we only get heart tattoos when we’re away from you and daddy. But this year, we’re not going away from you. This year, we’re together.”

This year, we’re not going away from you.
This year, we’re together.

… he’s not wrong.

Here goes nothing.