The sun has started to make an occasional appearance signaling the end of the school year. However, our kids have been stuck in spring break mode for weeks, meaning they don’t mentally check back into school and homework.

I’ve always made a point not to monitor my kids’ grades using the school’s handy dandy tracking devices. Their grades are their responsibility and I shouldn’t have to constantly check up on them. They know my expectations. Seriously, they have one job during the school year.

So why is it, every year around this time, I’m somehow blindsided by their penchant for dropping the ball? Don’t they understand that although I too am starting to ease into the summer frame of mind I seem to manage to wash the clothes and make dinner most nights? Their dad still manages to get up at 3:45 every morning to go to work. They can darn well complete their homework even if it takes all of April, May, and June to do it.

Then I have to play the bad guy, crack the whip and push them to finish the race. I’m not even requiring that they finish first; they just need to complete everything it will take them to get decent grades and remain “good students” on our car insurance.

As I’ve contemplated this problem, I do like every mother in the universe does, I blame it on myself (at least I hope every mother in the universe does this, otherwise I’ve been misguided for years). The other day, the three of us remaining in residence (my oldest moved out last fall) ended up eating at the kitchen table.

Embarrassingly enough, I can count on one hand how many times we’ve sat at the table to eat dinner as a family this school year. The whole schedule was thrown off when my oldest started school last fall moving into student housing, my husband was working a lot of overtime and my youngest began to get a life by joining a couple of after-school clubs and cleaning someone’s house once a week.

My world fell apart; or a least my dinner schedule fell apart. We eat early because everyone used to be home by 2:30. Now I make dinner and whoever shows up, shows up and we retreat to our different corners of the house to eat.

When I sit in the pediatrician’s office at my kids’ well-child checkups, he always asks me if we eat dinner as a family at least three or four days a week. Up until now I’ve proudly been able to answer yes. I admit I’ve been stressing over how to answer that question at my youngest daughter’s next visit: “Well, everyone arrives at different times… My youngest has chosen to participate in things… You see, my oldest…. My husband…”

So I decided this latest grade demise is not because my youngest was not getting her homework in on time, but because I have failed as a mother and we weren’t eating at the kitchen table. I realized this one day when I set the table (OK, it had to be cleared off too), but my husband was delayed. My youngest and I sat down at the table anyway.

I looked across at my daughter as we exchanged pleasantries about our day and realized I had not observed her full-on for quite some time. I apologized to her for not being on top of her struggle with her homework because of my lame dinner arrangements these past few months. Had we sat down every night, I would’ve noticed somehow.

She told me it wouldn’t have helped – you can’t hold back spring fever.

Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing and her daily blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com or on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh.” Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Lifestyles section.