Summer vacation is over and the kids are back in school. Cue the celebratory music, the running to the bathroom to poop alone, the pedicure appointments, the psychotic cleaning fits and the ability to shower without fixing a toy with shampoo in your eyes. It's an amazing feeling when they are back to a routine and you can finally focus...for one minute and then you realize that the real pain in the ass is just starting.

1. Many of us are just now realizing we are going to be wasting our best years in the pick-up line yelling at the minivan in front of us to "move up" and getting a third degree sunburn on only one arm.

2. I overheard some moms bragging about their kids learning Chinese over the summer at their hipster-immersion camps and yet I saw their little darlings picking their noses and wiping it on a wall last week.

3. Packing lunch is just placing 6 snack-pack size random things into a lunch box because the Pintrest-worthy animal-made-from-fruits and such lunches you've tried to send to school come home looking like Sloth from Goonies and they only thing your kiddos consume is the cheese and the juice box.

4. I am definitely guilty of buying the freshest new kicks for school only for my child to beg to wear his Mario slippers because they are way cooler. (Forehead smack)

5. Does anyone else's child have to be up at the butt-crack of dawn for Kindergarten? What is that all about?

6. What are all of these people talking about "back to school, time for wine" when it's 7 a.m. on a Wednesday and all I want to do is go back to bed but I have to try to get the paint out of this expensive ass uniform shirt from last year because I am way too cheap to buy a 6 year old a new wardrobe.

7. Trust me when I say that parts of summer were slow. We didn't do summer camp every week, so at times the hours on the clock would move at a glacial pace. Now that school is back in I feel the exact opposite. I am in drop off line, pull out of the school parking lot and into Starbucks and then it's time to get into pick-up line. Are we just in some sort of weird carline Twilight Zone that no one tells you about at Teacher Meet and Greet?

8. Speaking of Teacher Meet and Greet...Why don't they just let us all come in yoga pants, pajama and with gym hair? If they did they would have a better chance of recognizing me the next time they see me.

9. Is it a rule that at least once a week my child must allow his water bottle to leak and soak his entire bag, or is that just a super awesome coincidence?

10. Kids have a tendency to pick up odd habits at school. My son can now communicate through an intricate armpit Morse Code that would impress military code breakers.

11. Someone asked me if I was sad when my little started Kindergarten this year. My honest answer is as follows: No, I am super proud of us all for surviving this long in one piece and with no visible or apparent trauma. These first five years are hard. Keeping little rebels safe and happy is not easy. Good job, parents! You did it. Here's to the next 20 years of survival. Cheers! (insert wine here)

12. Our family isn't traditional, as we all know. We are a co-parenting family with 3 active parents (including a badass step-mom) so when the school inferred that step-momma bear was "the nanny" I'm not sure who was more offended: me, her or the feminist father whose jaw we had to pick up off of the floor. (Another forehead smack)

13. I saw a bumper sticker on a minivan that said "suburban gangsta." These are people I have to spend the next YEARS of my life socializing with at awkward birthday parties. I'm so screwed.

14. There are two versions of greeting other parents. One is a version that is warm, genuine and true. You know these people. They know you. They get you and your weird kid and they are here for, it no matter what. The second version is high pitched, painful and forced shrill "HEEYYYYY" that is almost a warning not to come near you because they are complete assholes and you don't have the energy to fend off their passive aggressive insults before your coffee kicks in.

15. Any time spent outside of school not doing homework or classwork review is basically spent trying to make your child as tired as possible. Don't be surprised of you stop by this week and I am making the little re-mulch the flower beds. That would ensure an 8pm bedtime.