Hole-y Hell

It's officially May. Which means the kids only have one more month of school before an entire summer of 24-7 togetherness. And bickering. And more bickering. And clearing out the fridge like a plague of locusts. And knock-down, drag-out fights. And still more bickering.

... What was I saying?

Oh yes. May. One more month of school left.

It doesn't seem like all that long, but when you're trying to hold together jeans, shoes, and backpacks, it's like a freaking eternity. All my kids' stuff is wearing out. Like, allllll their stuff. Apparently they spend their school days crawling through gravel on their knees, dragging their backpacks through thorn bushes, and using a belt sander on the toes of their shoes.

I don't want to buy them new stuff because hello, it's going to be summer and they won't need backpacks or jeans and they'll be wearing their shoes outside all the time anyway so I don't care if they're raggedy then.

But for now, I hold my breath every time I get a pair of my boys' jeans out of the dryer (oh, okay, or out of the dirty laundry pile. Don't judge). Will this be the wearing (or the washing) that turns out to be the last straw - the one that transforms worn knees into straight-up holes, rendering them un-wearable for school? Will I be forced to send one of my sons to school in a.) holey jeans, looking like a ragamuffin, b.) his brother's jeans that will be totally high-water, or c.) that weird pair of corduroy pants from the back of the drawer that no one ever wears? And on the lucky mornings when I realize that the boys' jeans will indeed live to see another day, I breathe a sigh of relief.

Of course, that does nothing for the anxiety I feel over the backpacks, which are also falling apart minute by minute. I guess it serves us right for buying cheap backpacks in the first place, but dang. School supplies for multiple kids ain't cheap. So now we're trying to hold them together until the end of the year. Just a few more weeks. The other day Cameron was like, "Mommy! My snack fell out of the hole in my backpack!" and I was all, "So I'll put it in the front pocket next time."

"There's a hole in that pocket too!" he wailed.

"Then I'll put it in that weird mesh water-bottle-holding section here on the side," I said. "Just put your hand over it when you walk so the snack doesn't fall out. Again."

And the shoes. We had to bite the bullet a couple months ago and buy them yet another pair of new school shoes because there were literally gaping holes in the toes. (And my suggestion of "just wear two pairs of socks" was met with total disdain. Even though there were only, like, four inches of snow on the ground at the time. Pssshhh.)

Anyway, now these shoes are starting to look tired. But even if they get holes, they're definitely going to be in use until the end of the school year.

Because c'mon. It's warm enough for holey shoes now, right?