Dear Teacher, my son will be late for school…


Dear Teacher,

Apparently it’s August. Didn’t summer vacation start just a few weeks ago? I can’t stop the calendar pages from turning, and I can’t make the world stop spinning, so here’s my plan.

We are going to be late for school.

No, I don’t mean 10 a.m. on the first day.

I mean October.

It’s the only way we can continue to enjoy this magnificent summer.


Just look outside! The sun is shining, a gentle breeze is blowing, and we have so much left to do!

Our inflatable pool is still mostly intact. We’re learning to hit and throw and catch, and no one (yet) has poked an eye out with the light sabers.

We have bottles of bubbles to blow and a pristine box of sidewalk chalk.

There are snowballs to eat and ice cream cones to lick.



There are bugs to find and wiggling worms to watch and bicycles to ride.

There are books to read and games to play and rainbow bracelets to make.



There are Legos cities to build and puzzles to assemble.

And I don’t think we know the name of every single obscure Transformers character.



But there’s still time to change that. We just need to push back the first day of school.

I promise we’ll keep learning and discovering and growing and having lots of summer fun.



I can’t promise we’ll work on that bridge book we tossed aside three days after school ended in June.



But it should give me time to figure out the school supply list and track down new uniforms and shoes.

And maybe, just maybe, one day we’ll work on those two book reports. But we definitely can’t do that unless we have an extra month or so.

So we’re coming. We’re on our way. We just might not get there until…maybe…Halloween?

Sincerely,

A Mother Who Doesn’t Want to See Summer End 

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The Catholic Review is the official publication of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

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