My son is just insisting that I call him King Tut, since he learned about the Boy King wonder last weekend and I have New York City to blame. 

More specifically, the amazing King Tut exhibit at the Times Square Discovery Exposition Center.  

I live in one of the greatest cities in the world–well, about an hour away from it (at least for now, stay tuned!) and I enjoy packing the kids in the car and heading to NYC on the weekends to take advantage of all that the city has to offer.

This past weekend, the kids and I hit up a family day for bloggers at Times Square Discovery Exposition Center.  The exhibit was pretty interesting and the kids seemed fascinated by the concept of a young boy being King. Most of all, they loved the chariot racing workshop that was held afterward. See pics below

It's just one of the exciting, kid-friendly workshops they are offering at the Discovery Center. In this workshop you design and decorate your own cardboard chariot, that gets attached to a backward wheelchair, adorned with a mannequin driver  (see pics) and then raced with another team. To win the race, you have to stop and wrap one of your team members into a mummy (that was Kayla!) , travel to another station and put hoola hoops over a obelisk and later toss balls into a large Egyptian urn.

The kids had a ball.

After an exciting lunch with plenty of "If I Were King, I Would….." conversation we headed up to the New World Stages on 50th Street to catch Freckleface Strawberry The Musical, based on the popular books by actress Julianne Moore. 

Freckleface Strawberry, aka Julianne Moore at a young age, is a touching story about accepting yourself the way you are. Strawberry is teased about her freckles constantly, so she tries different ways to hide them before ultimately hiding herself. Her musical journey to self-acceptance is complete when she discovers that her classmates missed her while she lived undercover.  They teach her that everyone is different and the most important thing is to have friends. 

We just loved the music and dancing! And the message of loving what's different about you works for everyone–even if you don't have freckles.

In between we got caught up in a street festival on 8th avenue where we couldn't resist trying candy apples, falafel, and straight out the husk  roasted corn with butter, salt and parmesan cheese!!

Time for my detox!!

We were definitely exhausted and in an empire state of mind. …..now, sing it with me, there's nothing you can't do!! when you're in New York!!

As much as nothing will bring me more joy than putting my two “little people” back on the school bus tomorrow, what it takes to get there is, quite frankly, a real pain in the butt.  

From the time August rolls in, the TV is full of cheery kids in bright plaid outfits and cutesy hats dancing around to upbeat music as they board a yellow school bus. You may notice: There are no moms in these ads!!!!

And that brings me to why I hate back to school time.

It’s not just the mad rush of back to school shopping and the way otherwise normal people, go absolutely crazy over 10 for $1 glue sticks. Ok maybe it is. It’s not how my girlfriends start showing up at Old Navy at 6 am for “doorbuster specials” just to get t-shirts for $2.  Or even worse, call me up at 6:30 am asking if I want her to grab a few. Yes, thank you, but really I want to know why you got up at 5 am to buy kid clothes. Save that kind of energy for Nordstrom. Seriously.   

But what I really can’t understand is why the school supply lists are now so long they have to be collated, bound and sent parcel post. WTF?? Every year I’m eager to see what else we are going to be asked to bring to school. If it’s not disinfecting wipes and mops (hello, don’t our taxes pay for a school janitor?) or paper towels or DVDs or chinaware. Next we will be asked to supply our own desks and chairs (I hope I’m not giving them any ideas).

Last year, I made the never-to-be-repeated mistake of getting my school supplies on the night of the first day of school. Let’s just say, I could have gone postal in Staples. I haven’t stood in a line that long since I was outside Madison Square Garden trying to get New Edition tickets. You would have thought the gloved one himself was in Staples looking for a glittery folder and a monkey backpack the way the line looped up and down four aisles.

Of course, the only reason why I, being a sane woman , would have ever been in the war zone known as Staples on the first day of school was because I registered my children late. I registered my children late because for the past three years the “wasband” has registered the children at his address because he technically lives in a better school district and its part of our legal agreement.  But that year, the new girlfriend, whom I affectionately call…well, never mind, made a huge stink about our legal agreement and my wasband didn’t have the cojones to put her in her place. At least, not by the first day of school. And so I had to stand on line for three hours and register my kids in my own school district on the day before school began.  

I share this so you can understand my mama-on-the-edge mindset when I was standing on line again that night in Staples ready to stab someone with a number 2 pencil. If I could have found a compass in that mess, I would have been arrested. But the place looked like Beirut. And there was barely anything left.  At the end of it all, Kayla’s folder for the first day was plain white and came from my home office. Draw your own pony or star, I told her. Builds creativity, I told myself.

But still the frenetic mayhem among moms is crazy. The” Did you do your BTSS ” phone calls. The “Done with BTSS (that’s  Back To School Shopping in text-ease for the uninitiated)???” texts. The BTS sales at Walmart alerts. Enough already.

Remember when you went to school with a (plain) notebook and a pencil. And you better hope that your backpack was tore up (or you tore it up real quick in early August) or you would be rockin’ the same back pack from last year.  I’m all for one first day of school, back-to-school outfit, but after that you have to wait. It’s still hot here anyway, you can wear your summer clothes for a few weeks.

But the truth is, after 8 weeks of museums, amusement parks, trips to the zoo, aquarium, the pool, the beach  and still countless “mommy, I’m bored’ moments, we’d gnaw off a limb to get these jokers back in school asap! Schools, we beg you to take them off our hands and we’ll buy 55 supplies and coffee and biscotti for the teacher’s lounge if we have to!!  I’m so over summer. And I’m over the back to school frenzy. What I really need is that moment after the last school bus pulls off and I get my minute-to-myself and 8am to 3pm days back.

Growing up black in America, at least the northeast part of it, usually meant that during the summer you would venture “down south” to visit grandma, aunties, uncles and other family members.  And my life was no different. Every summer, shortly after school let out, we’d pack in the car and pull out around midnight for the 13-hour drive to my Granny’s house in South Carolina.  This was our summer routine. Our family tradition.

On the way down, my father would remind us to say hello to everyone on the street. He would remind us to use Mam and Sir for older adults, and to always say Yes and No. No head nodding or shoulder shrugging allowed. 

I’m pretty sure I was pretty close to college age, before I experienced the 4^th of July holiday anywhere else but from Sumter, South Carolina and even to this day, watching Wimbledon from anywhere but my Granny’s living room on her floor model TV, just doesn’t feel right.

As we got older, my parents would stay and visit for a week or two and then leave my older sister and I in South Carolina for a few weeks. We were two city girls thrust into southern life.

During those summers, my Granny would take us to her farmland where we picked peas. Then we would shell them while sitting on the front porch listening to her tell us stories. During those summers, we learned to crochet and made more pot holders than any human could use during their lifetime.

One summer we did latch hook rug kits, that my Granny proudly framed and hung in her living room like Picassos. We went fishing, we took walks.  She rented bikes for us for the summer. And then my Granny would take us deep into the country, where people lived tucked behind cornfields and at the end of long dirt roads to meet fourth cousins, family centegenarians, and other relatives we never knew. We learned to sit quietly and listen to old folks talking—all excellent training that was part of my childhood summer experience.  And every year, like clockwork, we’d cry as we left Granny’s house, even when we were really too old to still cry and even as we watched her cry as she waved us out of the driveway. It was part of our summer tradition. 

 Over the last few years since my parents relocated back to South Carolina (I'm still not over it) , my children have been having a summer tradition of their own. I call it “Camp Grandma”—my kids spend two or three weeks with my mom and dad at their home.

Of course, the fact that I get a month-long break every summer is the headline that gets all the oohs, aahhs, and sometimes a ‘how could you?” glance. I just ignore those. As a divorced mom, I appreciate the gift of some free time to recoup, and I make no apologies or hold no regrets about dumping, er, I mean dropping my kids off to my parents’ every summer.

More importantly, I get excited by the experience my children are having.  They go fishing with their granddad. Bake brownies and do arts and crafts with grandma. When I went to go pick them up from South Carolina last week and spend a few days with my parents, I watched them recognize at least five different types of trees on sight (Magnolias are their favorite), I listened to all their stories, what they learned visiting farms and feeding horses. I listened to their latest “Grandma-isms” and all the things about life their grandparents taught them.  

When we drove down to the “country”, I saw their pride as my Dad drove them through his old hometown pointing out the old movie theater where he had to enter upstairs in the “Colored” section and the look on their faces when we saw the street sign, bearing the Seals name, that sits on the family land that was given to my great, great grandfather when he was freed as a slave. I was so proud of my children when they sat respectfully in hot living rooms while we visited with 90 plus-year-old family matriarchs.  And my visits to South Carolina are still not complete unless I visit my Granny’s gravesite and sense her presence (I gave my Granny’s name, Rebecca, to my daughter as a middle name).

And when the children and I left South Carolina, and my children doubled back for a third round of good bye hugs and kisses from Grandma and Grandpa, I knew exactly why. I saw myself in their lives.

Yes, to everyone who asks, I really enjoy my annual month off from motherhood. And yes, there is usually a party involved!  But what happens for my children during that month, makes the break even more enjoyable.