I remember going back to school after Labor Day as a child.  This may or may not be true, memory is an inconstant thing, but this is how I remember it.

There were swimming lessons late in August, lessons in the evening and we shivered in our damp towels on the ride home, the nights already cooling in a way they did not in July.  As I write this I wonder why lessons so late in the season, mere weeks before the pool would close.  It was the early 60s and the world was lousy with kids so maybe it was the only time there were slots open.

Regardless, my mother and her friend signed us all up for lessons, and I did passably well learning my strokes and holding my breath as long as my feet could still touch the bottom.  On the night of the final, the big test, with parents gathered around to watch us, we were to stand on the ledge of the diving pool, lean over with our arms above our heads in some semblance of a diving stance, then splash into the water and  swim the length of the pool without drowning, some poor lifeguard treading water for what seemed like hours, making sure we didn’t. 

I failed that test. 

Never jumped in, no matter how that lifeguard begged me, reassured me.  No matter the jeers from my brother, already in possession of his certificate. 

Not even when my mother’s friend marched up to her own daughter in a huff, because she was pulling the same stunt I was.  Not even when her little girl’s eyes widened as her mother hissed words is her ear and she dived in like a cartoon character doing a double take and swam like a maniac, her little butt stuck up in the air,  jiggling back and forth with her leg kicks, and everyone laughing.

Not even then.  

My humiliation wore off fairly quickly, because school would soon start and here I was in my element.  Not math class maybe, but English and current events, in which I learned I had many opinions, and then the social aspect of school.  Well.

This I was born to. 

But first it was about the school supplies. 

Mostly it was about the school supplies. 

It seems to me that we showed up at elementary school early one morning, our mothers squeezed into tiny chairs where they received some kind of instruction and a list of supplies for each of us.  At that point, not a moment sooner or later, we piled back into the car and headed for Ben Franklin. 

The lists were not so long back then, fat pencils and crayons, notebook paper and penmanship tablets, and always lots of begging for compasses and protractors, that last bit of equipment I never knew the purpose of.  Gum erasers, maybe a small ruler.

But just last week a friend of mine, a teacher,  was tossed into a tizzy, a bit of a meltdown, when she saw an advertisement for school supplies at one of her local emporiums. She knew what that meant. It’s not that she is oblivious, for surely she has seen the stacks of paper and legions of colored folders taking up the shelves that used to house pool toys and sun screen. 

It’s just that something about the end of summer, her summer, hit her between the eyes and she didn’t like it.  It broke her heart a little.  Broke every other teacher’s heart, too, with whom she shared her upset on Facebook.

It was a fleeting upset for her, I hope.   But anyone who lives by the school calendar feels her pain and commiserates.  Me, too. The end of summer used to be late August.  Not anymore.  

Summer calendars get filled in and marked and loaded down with things, obligations, work and chores and then one day, where did it go, exactly, all our lovely free time?

My life, since age six, has been ruled by the school year.  Every job I have had has been in an educational setting or in support of school aged children.  Even now, when I no longer have to report for duty, when I can travel anytime I want, I cling to fall break,  spring break and Christmas closings like a drowning man, mark them on my calendar still.   

And I am always sorry for summer’s end.  The idea of it, that freedom, even as I feel the tug and anticipation of a fully stocked Ben Franklin.

I will wait until later in August, because that is proper timing, and at such time I will buy new notebooks.  Pens.  A protractor.  And then, for summer, a proper goodbye. 

There was a time when I went to baby showers content in the fact that I had shopped at the most exclusive emporium for baby goods.  I had been assured by the clerk who looked down her nose that my purchases were tasteful, useful and oh, so desirable for the new mother-to-be, and if they offered gift wrapping—which places like that always do — more the better. 

I then took myself off to the baby shower, relatively happy to play those silly games because for baby showers there is always cake in the shape of happy animals — rabbits or teddy bears, and I am a sucker for cake. 

Sometimes a slightly disheveled sister-in-law would bust in late, a giant package of disposal diapers under her arm.  The more spit-up she had on her shoulder, the bigger the package of diapers. 

I’d scoff a little to myself, reassured by the receipt in my purse, the one they put  in the little envelope, as if it, too, were a gift, because I couldn’t think of a more unimaginative present than diapers. 

A couple of weeks ago word reached me that my niece, Katie, was starting to panic, or at least getting a little anxious, as the birth of her first child loomed on a near horizon.  Her friends had thrown a virtual shower, with links to on-line wish lists, but still, there was so much she needed, or thought she needed, to feel prepared.  

And diapers were right up there with onesies.  There was something about having a shelf full of diapers in two different sizes the soothed and reassured her.  Ditto, onesies.  But that’s not all.

It has been twenty-five years since I have bought baby things, and it is nothing like I remember.  There are Boppys, round pillows for the baby to lounge on, and for something called “tummy time.”  When my mother thought the backs of our heads were getting funny-looking, she just flipped us over.  My sister turned her kids like pancakes because she wanted them to have ‘pretty-shaped heads,” the highest compliment our grandmother could give a child.

Then there are the bottle and pacifier boxes.  Katie’s sister, Hannah, and I went shopping last week and we looked for them because they were on the registry.  I had no idea what this was.  I worked out maybe they were sterilizing contraptions, which I understand for bottles, but not the pacifier.  If we spit one out in the dirt outside, my mother rinsed it off with the garden hose.  Inside, if water was in the other room, it got swiped across the leg of her pants. I saw the dog lick one clean once.

But no, the bottle and the  pacifier box are designed for the child to choose.  In each box is a collection of, let’s say, four different pacifiers, bottles.  The idea is to let the infant try them out and then somehow “select” the one they like best.

I fear these new parents may come to regret this early encouragement of choice, but what do I know?  Maybe a little more ease and comfort early on would have made us all a bit nicer, more tolerant of each other.  I know I act my ugliest when I am frustrated and powerless and not listened to, so perhaps there is something to it.

Katie is a practical sort, even so, and while she is enthralled with the idea of the baby choosing pacifiers and bottles, she is keeping it simple, too.  Her cousin, Alex, has helped in this department.  She has an eight month jump on Katie in the new mama department, and has been the go-to for what works well, what is a must-have, what is ridiculous, and what is the thing you need most at 2:30 in the morning when you have your first cry at the kitchen table. 

Katie wants socks the baby won’t kick off.  Alex says there are no such things. 

Katie thinks four swaddles are enough.  Alex, and every other mother out there, says no.

Katie just wants this baby born.  Alex, who went long, says, I hear ya. 

Katie and Troy are waiting.  It shouldn’t be much longer.  And of course,  it isn’t about any of this, diapers, swaddles, Boppys.   It is about this new little life and how it will ripple and ripple through our hearts, forever.  Onesies we can buy any time, and all day long.