I have decided that somewhere between birthing seven children - including one who is suspiciously looking more and more like a cat every day - washing apples in the soda fountain at McDonald's and telling bathroom stories in the middle of a meal, my mother has lost her mind. Oh, and she also forgot to care that tomorrow is the first day of school for the three youngest monsters in this household.

I'm sure your first day of school ritual went something like this: You laminate your school supply list at the beginning of the summer and keep it in a safe place until August rolls around the corner. You schlept yourself to Wal-Mart and painstakingly debate between the five different designs of Lisa Frank pencil boxes. You dig through plastic sacks the night before school starts, putting every glue stick and box of crayons in the right pocket. You lay out your pressed polo shirt and polyester plaid skirt right before you're tucked into bed for your necessary nine hours of sleep.

That was me. In the early 1990s. With a refreshed mother who got excited about little things, like the newness of the first day of school. That's when our family still balanced, albeit shakily, on the edge of normalcy. And, perhaps most poignantly, that's when there was no Lexie.

Fast forward twelve years. Dad dragged himself and the three youngest kids to bed after a night at the fair. My sisters live for one thing and one thing only: their cats. They don't care about school. In fact, they probably even forgot that school starts tomorrow, so forget about packing your bookbag. No worries, however, because Mom's on top of things. She directed me toward the downstairs basement closet and the bags and bags of school supplies. She also scrawled out three class supply lists before popping four Naproxins to numb the pain shooting down her legs.

So here I am, sleepy and CHILDLESS, mind you, trying to pacify these soulless professionals. Kevin's teacher wants the gluesticks that come three to a pack - DO THOSE EVEN EXIST?! Somehow we ended up with seven boxes of markers, yet one box of crayons. Dry erase markers for a fifth grade class?! What the hell. I don't even think we were allowed to operate pens then. Between the three of them, they need roughly 26 boxes of Kleenex and Mom must have forgotten that.

I'm going to poke my eye out with a No. 2 pencil.