1. On one hand, a lot is fabulous about having high school kids. Harry and Jack are so smart and funny and grown up. It's like we suddenly got a couple of charming new friends who also live with us. I love when they want o hang out with us, and in the late evening when they're home and showered, and eating snacks and winding down for the night, the 4 of us have a blast together, even just watching bad TV. They are so capable and generally willing and excited to help, and watching the 2 oldest kids with Minnie is a top-tier delight of a lifetime. Having another driver in the house is SO HANDY, and I love when they just walk out the door and go to school without any assistance from us, especially after a year of driving to high school with Harry, dropping him off, coming home, sending Dorothy and Cooper across the street, and loading up Jack and driving him, too, across town to middle school EVERY SINGLE WEEKDAY and then repeating the whole thing like 6 hours later.
2. On the other hand! Having a high school junior is STRESSFUL because you are basically asking these kids who are really still BABIES to decide REALLY IMPORTANT THINGS about THE REST OF THEIR LIVES, and they are BABIES who DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS. But! Parents cannot make college decisions for kids. That's the who point of college-- to help them grow up.
3. I wrote THIS POST for Madison Mom, which basically is the talk I give to parents at freshman orientation in the summer, and I think it's all true, but HAVING MY OWN JUNIOR IS IGNITING MY HELICOPTER-NESS like never before. And you guys! It is not like I have been chill up to now, you know?
4. I just think about when Cooper is a junior, and we will have already had 2 kids graduate (please God) from college by then and we will be old pros and so chill and laugh at the selves we are right now. I am not one to wish time away but I wish I could just have a teeny glimpse into this future, you know?
5. ALSO! Our school is very pointedly NOT taking away cell phones during the school day (in contrast to schools on the east side of town), and it's REALLY HARD to convince these tiny infants who are in charge of giant pieces of machinery and also THEIR OWN FUTURES MY GOD to put their effing phones away and focus in class. I just. Gah.
My feelings about this are delicious: pancakes with a friend and a sandwich so big it needed a box. ON THE SAME DAY.
The phone thing would drive me batty! I am hoping that there will be some massive reactionary movement that makes mobile phones wildly uncool by the time my kid is old enough to have one... I can dream, can't I?
ReplyDeleteGetting kids ready for college sounds SO stressful. I am sure you are doing exactly the right thing, but that doesn't make it less stressful.