Back to School

Gone are the days of children hopping on the school bus, waving goodbye to their tearful parents, armed with lunches filled with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and apples. Gone are the days of color-coordinated outfits, cute backpacks and crayon-produced artwork that are proudly displayed on the refrigerator door. No more. These are days of the past. These are the days of younger, care free, jovial youngsters. These are the days that my children used to experience. Now, the alarm goes off at 5 AM and there is a mad dash to see who gets a shower first. The oldest two head off to church seminary at 5:30 AM and then to school (Alex comes back home for home school, Logan heads off to high school by 7 AM, courtesy of Super Dad). The youngest manages to put himself together by 6:30 and announces to his personal taxi driver (mom), that he is now ready to be dropped off at school. If he's lucky, Mom is already showered, dressed and sprinting toward the door to face morning traffic. Otherwise, she grabs her keys in the latest pajama fashions and feels her way to the car. No school bus (normally not safe), no wave to tearful parents (tears of joy?), and no lunches (it's way more cool to buy a lunch or just wait till you get home and devour the kitchen). There are no color-coordinated outfits (unless the school requires a particular dress code). Backpacks should be inconspicuous and carry only 2 books at a time. Forget about the artwork, unless you can count doodling on your notebook art.
The things that remain the same through the years, however, have been the eagerness of the boys to learn. Logan is taking several new types of classes this year and is excited (for now) about them. He is taking French 1, AF ROTC, Biology Honors and Aerospace/Aviation. Reid gets to experience his first year of junior high with classes such as Robotics, BioMed, PE (swimming!), Computers and the other standard classes. He's just glad to be done with elementary school. Alex is pushing his way through his Physics, Spanish 2, Literature and math course so he can be done with school by the end of this year. He's also working 2 full days a week and volunteers quite a bit of his time to help others students his age. No wonder why adults are continually encouraged to learn new things; it's so they can keep up with their children!