The girls and I were looking at the school calendar this morning.  We were talking about how they had a four-day week last week for Rosh Hashana.  It would have been nice if it was a Friday or Monday off, but the Jewish New Year fell on a Thursday.  Being home for one day in the middle of the week, for no apparent reason (the school didn’t explain to the students why they had the day off) was tough for the girls.  We had a pretty wild day at home until I dragged them out to a local nature park.  Anyway, that day off got me thinking about last year’s crazy calendar.   

We didn’t pull up the calendar from the previous year, but I recalled how there were very few weeks when the girls went to school five days in a row.  And there were rarely back-to-back weeks of five days in a row.  That is, until the end of the year, where we saw a long stretch of weeks without respite.  Pulling up this year’s calendar, we saw that it will play out the same way.   

We had a full month of school, minus Labor Day in September.  But, from here on out, there are only four times that the girls will go to school five days a week two weeks in a row until we get to March.  Then, they have a three week “marathon” in March.  Then, after Spring Break, there is an endurance testing, seven week! run through April and May, ending with a day off for Memorial Day.  That’s followed by what is usually a dizzying nine days to end the school year. 

I just did a quick count, and we have 144 days of school left until the year is over.  It may be a bit early to start a paper chain, but maybe not too early to start the countdown.