S-c-h-o-o-l!

I'm obviously not ready for school, the stringent, high-stress routine of it. I'm not talking about my further education, though I occasionally still have disturbing dreams about being sent back to elementary school. No, what I'm not in the swing of is getting my kids ready for school, and it shows.

This morning I suddenly realized my daughter might not have anything to wear, not one school-dress-code thing. All her new school uniforms were dirty to my knowledge.

"Oh no! Ana, do you have anything to wear?" I moaned.

She pulled out a pair of navy pants from last year. They are about three inches too short in the leg and would require a bungee cord to fit on her waist. It was clearly time for a scavenger hunt for the one skort, and heaven only knew where it could be, that still fit her from last year.

While I was searching for it among three different rooms, Berto asked, "Mama, where's my large white shirt?"

Dirty, that was the answer; I knew I'd never washed it after buying it last week, because I'd been waiting for white laundry to accumulate, so it could have a respectable gathering in the washer.

"Uh...."

This is about when my husband caught a whiff of the stinky, non-preparedness situation as he was expertly outfitting himself for work, including slicking back the hair.

"What's wrong?" he demanded. "Do they not have any clothes?"

"Uh, nothing. Don't worry about it. I've got it covered." What I didn't have covered was my kids. In fact, I wasn't even sure they had socks. I was pretty sure, but things seemed kinda unreliable.

"Look, Berto," I said privately to him in his room. "You might just have to wear the shirt you wore yesterday."

Dutifully, he brought it to me.

"What does this smell like?" he asked.

I took a good whiff.

"Well, it smells like a boy running around the basketball courts... (another sniff) and the back field...crawling on the classroom carpet...and talking smack with his friends. It's probably fine."

"No!" my husband boomed. "You wear that again and that thing is going to stink."

What? Did he think that the smell of two days of nine-year-old in 110 degree weather was indelible on cotton? Thankfully, I found a cache of medium-sized shirts shoved to the back of my son's closet. It wasn't ideal, and he definitely would have preferred his stinky shirt, but at least they were clean. And in my daughter's drawer (of all places!), I found for her that miracle skort that could survive a year of growth.

"Well, well..." I said to my Man as I stepped into our bedroom and puffed out my chest. "I told you I had it covered."

"Good," he responded. "I was worried I was going to have to go all G on you guys."

I laughed heartily, and then said with great admiration in my heart, "I love G!"

G is a beloved friend who is light years more organized and "with it" than me. The day before the first day of school she had her kids do a dry run - including taking showers, packing up backpacks and putting on full uniforms to stand at the door. She even timed them.

Well, well. You can bet I don't have it down to a science like G. In fact, my get-ready-for-school routine for the kids is more creative - like an abstract, hypothetical, every-man-for-himself sprint for a fuzzy finish line. I mean, that leaves things open for stuff like my daughter forgetting her shoes. Which she did today. Thankfully, it was my preschooler, and preschool hasn't started yet. When it does, perhaps I should "go all G" on my kids. I might even take it a step or two further with whistles, timers, and marches in sync to the door.

At any rate, today I did some laundry.