AUGUST?!?!

This? Is why you should never use the calendar that comes from the school. Initially delighted that someone else had gone to the trouble of marking in all the no-school days and given me a free calendar, I placed it prominently and tried to give our lives some semblance of order by putting all of most of a few of our commitments on it.

I was all smug in January because I didn't have to go out and buy a calendar like those 2008 losers - I just flipped a page and, hey presto! it was 2009.

Not so smug now, I'm afraid. Last week I flipped the page and, hey presto! ads for orthodontic services and music lessons.

School year calendar = ends in summer = no page for August. And because there was no page for August, I didn't write anything down for this month. I just filed it away in that less-than-reliable-since-I-had-babies mental organizer, hoping it would stick.

(It hasn't, which is how I've already double-booked us for something accidentally.)

Worse, without a physical presence, August had a tenuous existence and seemed like something that would eventually happen at some point, but was so far off it wasn't anything to worry about (see: retirement, turning 40, losing those stupid five pounds for good, the rapture).

So *flip* and suddenly I've been attacked by a month that I totally didn't see coming. Plus my August is shorter than most people's. We're leaving for a family vacation next Friday, immediately after which we drop the munchkins off in Steinbach for a glorious horrible two weeks of doing grown-up things like restaurants and moves in the theatre missing them terribly.

They'll only return on Labour Day, which means that I now have exactly 8 more days to get ready for school as opposed to the entire month like everyone else. Plus getting them ready to spend three weeks away from home.

So, lesson learned: next year, I'm buying a calendar for 2010, even if it's a stupid "Kittens of the World" one (since I'm too cheap to ever buy one for retail and by the time they're marked down enough for my pocketbook, the good ones are gone). Maybe then January will be the month that time forgot. Because nothing important happens in January, right?