No more teachers. Dirty looks.

At 3:10 tommorrow afternoon, the bells will ring across the Podunky Area School District, and the Gates of Hell will officially spring open.

Summer is upon us. Students will burst forth from their mandatory brick-and-plaster incarceration, primed and ready to be kids and nothing but kids for nearly three months under lazy, sun-drenched skies.

Teachers will exhale and look forward to a well-deserved break from a hard job well done.

I will scowl, and greet this moment with the enthusiasm one normally reserves for the onset of a throbbing, 84-day canker sore.

Until September 2--glorious, glorious September 2--I will be thoroughly immersed in the multiple roles of activity coordinator, referee, short-order cook, zookeeper, housekeeper, and nurse practitioner. I will attempt to deftly navigate the Class V rapids of hyperactivity, sibling rivalry, world class nagging, and, of course, skin-piercing abandoned Legos.

The activity calendar is laden with distractions, from soccer to swim lessons to camping trips. There will be a handful of weeks when the jackals will be blessedly spending half days in the Montessori summer program. An already-booked late August trip to Disneyworld will provide useful carrott-and-stick material for those moments when all other discipline fails; I'm calling this "The Nuclear Option" (do NOT put it past me to cancel a $3,000 trip to prove a point. This is about control. And my sanity.)

But for the most part, it'll just be me, them, and the languidly unfolding hours of a typically slow-boil Wisconsin summer.

Thank God for beer.