The Schedule Shuffle

Yay. Back-to-school season. Again.

This year I timed vacations perfectly to coincide with our back-to-school dates, keeping me busy during my slowest time of the year. But now that I’m back at work and getting reacquainted with my routine, it’s time for everyone else’s routines to change.

Ho hum.

And thus begins the annual tradition of shuffling everyone’s standing appointments around to accommodate new schedules: Girl Scouts, Brownies, dance, soccer, football, cheer — seriously, you’d think people would work a little harder to get their kids’ schedules sorted out before those schedules need to be met!

Instead, it’s always a mad rush to find places to move clients while they deal with the mad rush to get their kids where they need to be. “Maggie? I can’t do Tuesdays, that’s Girl Scouts.” “Maggie? I can’t do Thursdays, that’s football practice.” “Maggie? I can’t do Mondays because dance.”

I don’t have kids, so my concept of juggling their schedules is outdated. Parents didn’t sit through every extracurricular activity with their kids when I was one. They dropped us off and picked us up. If someone’s parents came to every practice, we were seriously suspicious of that kid.

But — *shrug* — things are different and every parent does everything with her kids now. And kids are busy these days. Which means so are their parents... which means so am I.

Moving my Monday clients to Thursday as soon as I can move my Thursday clients to Tuesdays and my Tuesday clients to sometime on Friday afternoon.

It always seems to work itself out though. And the back-to-school shuffle has endeared itself as a little ritual in my life that keeps that “OMG SCHOOL IS STARTING” excitement alive for me as a childless adult. Reminding me that fall will arrive soon, with cooler weather and the busy holiday season.

It’s always a challenge to get everyone settled back into our new routine for the year, but it’s also kinda fun.