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Contents of a Toddler’s Backpack, Photo by Cathy Stanley-Erickson

Memorial Day is coming up soon, so the ceremonial beginning to summer is upon us. More importantly, for anyone under 18, it means that school is almost over!

If I remember correctly, that also means that the shiny new backpack you got last fall, and the promise you made to yourself not to be disorganized this year, are both destroyed. In these last few weeks of school, we deal with a very prevalent issue from The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Parenting.

Father’s Day is coming up, and if your Dad is anything like mine, he’s far too busy to read. Constantly wrangling his grandkids, fussing over the house, planning his well earned “dammit-I’m-retired-I’ll-do-what-I-want” vacations.

Or if he’s a younger Dad, like any number of my friends, he’s swamped between balancing work and raising a new munchkin. Diapers to change, pre-schools to find, babysitters to screen, getting a little video gaming in here and there. Who has the time?

No matter how busy Dad is, there should always be time to squeeze in a little reading. The trick is finding just the right book.

One of my employees has a hilarious poster in her office that reads “NOW PANIC AND FREAK OUT.” (From the Philadelphia-based design studio, Print Liberation.) I thought of the poster last week when I did just that, and for not a very good reason-I freaked out because my kids and I were late for school. It was a bad parenting moment. But we all have those.

You see, my daughter has discovered the joys of “doing her hair,” something she had no interest in last year. It was time for us to head out the door, but her hair “just isn’t right,” she informed me as she tromped back upstairs to the bathroom to fix it.

“We’re going to be late,” I told her. She just stopped and glared, then headed upstairs nevertheless. “Soph,” I said, “watch it.” This, of course, made matters worse, as it sent her not to the bathroom to fix her hair, but to her room, crying.