Are you ready to send the kids back to school? Sure we are. The house and neighborhoods will be quieter. Childhood boredom will all but disappear. Even police officers, who’ve spent the past two months dealing with quite a bit of teenage mischief, will get a little reprieve.

But then…

We need a new backpack. The uniforms, which fit absolutely fine in May, don’t fit anymore. Gymnastics registration is due, again. New tennis shoes are a must. And, of course, the endless morning arguments about hairstyles are about to heat up. And homework, ouch. Some of it I just don’t understand.

I’ve often wondered why schools don’t have a homework prep class for parents. I even suggested it to my daughter’s teacher last year.

I was pretty good in school. National Honor Society and all that. But the stuff my second-grader brought home last year was beyond me. There was many a night in our house the homework check ended with, “I have no idea about this page.”

And just think, only 10 more grades to go.

Now I’m trying to find extra-curricular activities for my daughter. She takes gymnastics, so at least she’s involved in something, but I don’t really see much beside cartwheels and hand stands in her future. I sent her to a cheerleader camp and a sports camp this summer at her school. She enjoyed both and hopefully learned something.

But I’ve asked her about playing a sport this fall (in years past she was totally uninterested), and I’m having a hard time convincing her kick ball isn’t offered by local recreation departments.

“But it’s fun,” she always answers.

She has developed an interest in volleyball and took her volleyball to Destin with us a few weeks ago to play on the beach. None of the other kids around were really interested, though, so she’d practice her serves until finally getting bored with playing alone.

So she’d stop, look all dejected, then start running back toward me. Before she’d get there, however, she’d come up limping.

“I twisted my ankle again,” she’d say.

What my daughter really needs is an acting class. Not to learn how to act, mind you. To hone her skills. I think she’d be a natural. She is the ultimate drama queen with facial expressions like I’ve never seen.

So here we are, two weeks away from the start of school and, well maybe, I’m not really ready. I haven’t got a firm plan on after-school activities. I haven’t bought new uniforms. Or new tennis shoes.

And I definitely haven’t psyched myself up for getting up a little earlier, fixing breakfast and, alas, fussing over my daughter’s latest idea of a really cool hairstyle.

Sandy Cunningham is general manager and managing editor of St. Tammany News. She can be reached at sandy.cunningham@wickcommunications.com.