And Graduation Kudos go to ... The Parents!

Lucas graduation!

It's the last week of school and congratulations are due all around! No matter what age or grade we are finishing up, each and every one of us has somehow had a rite-of-passage graduation party at school totally stripping any meaning of actual accomplishments and rites of passage.

Raia gymnastics "graduation/open house/
not really graduation"

Raia pre-K graduation! She was the least interested

Me! (the one in blue) My ballet recital

After ballet recital lavishing sunflowers on my instructor

To further erode any significance of our accomplishments, each and every extra-curricular activity has or will host its own end-of-year party. Of course! Even if it was a mere "open lesson" because the participants were too young to put on a show, it was yet another appointment for parents to put on their Calendar of Guilt to attend or not be able to attend due to scheduling conflicts.

And some of them, such as my ballet recital and my kindergarten graduation, fell on the same evening! But these were at different times hence making it impossible for my parents to skip one, just making it necessary for them to CRAM IN MORE to a condensed and stressed amount of time (including dropping off the siblings with a babysitter since they are specifically banished from their brother or sister's party ... a suggestion ignored by 99 percent of most parents. Not mine.).

Wardrobe change! Here's Dad and Talia transforming me from
Dancer Extraordinaire to Graduate

I graduated! Me and friend Yacout

Now for some complicated Parent Math.

Problem: How many hours will you spend on your children's end-of-year events this month?

Solution: First, answer how many children you have. That is equal to how many school end-of-the-year parties you have. Then, consider how many extra curricular activities your kids attend (Ballet? Judo? Soccer? Special needs after-school program? Etc.?). Multiply that number by 1,000. Add in time shopping for the refreshments assigned to you for each party plus the end-of-year gifts for teachers, instructors, personal aides, afternoon staff and the one-on-one tutor that comes weekly to meet with your child.

Truth: Your entire month of June will consist of driving children to their parties. You will spend an amount equal to the sum of children you have birthed times events per child SQUARED and then times infinity. You will take an indefinite leave of absence (mentally if not actually) from your job in order to facilitate your children's schedules. You will spend (multiply by number of children ie TRIPLE in our case) your monthly average on gas or bus fare. You will be subjected to the torture methods used on prisoners of war employing shoddy sound systems and shrill and repetitive children's music. You will assuredly run out of storage on your "smartphone." And your sleep loss will experience subtraction and division in proportion to the multiplication and addition of events.

Suddenly your children have attained the status and schedule of POTUS and you have become their personal assistant.

But congratulations! Your children has graduated to, er, ... kindergarten! WOW!!!

Or in my case, and Lucas's, FIRST GRADE!

At this point, the parents don't care. They are just praying for it all to end so they can find a semblance of routine again ... until the homework begins!

So on this blog, despite the fact that is is written by and for babies, we salute the Parents of the World who have endured this last month and lived to tell the tale.

Here's me with my mortarboard... and my
beloved personal assistants, Merav and Yasmin 

Yasmin was with me every step of
the way this year

Follow @nic_jansezian