First Day of School

Now I remember why our parents had us go to bed early so that we could get up early for school.  Because we're tired and don't want to get up.  So here I sit, dragging myself around, attached to my 1.25 liter of diet coke, my computer, and my daughter's iPad (which is, by the way, playing Gregorian chants, because although I consider myself Jewish, I find myself soothed by the solid tones and words that are not in my language).

I let the dog out this morning, and it was cooler than yesterday.  My big girls start their college classes today and Brett asked me to stay home to wish her well on her day.  (Not her words -- mine.)  I cannot imagine missing their first day of school, which is odd, since being homeschooled they've only had a few "first days of school" -- and they were all college classes.  I cannot imagine what it would be like to send them every year off on the bus, like millions of other parents, packed with lunch, backpacks packed for their day ahead.

I have decided to enter my youngest, Austen, into a lottery for the Montessori school.  It's a local charter school, part of the public school system here.  Montessori is so very close to homeschooling and she is the only one of the four girls that seems that she may benefit in this type of an environment.  I hope she gets in for a hundred reasons.  Mostly because I think she will excel in that environment, but I think I'm ready for it as well.

Hayden will have her first day of school perhaps this summer as she enters Trident Technical College, following her sisters into an early college entrance.  I know there are some "nay-sayers" on this (my father), wondering why high school isn't more appropriate.  Perhaps she will find, after a summer class at Tech, that Wando High School is truly where she wants to go, but I want to give her the option I gave her sisters.

So, I start my morning, waking up slowly, reading my Sacred Intentions, a Jewish inspirational book of devotions, and hoping my daughters have a good first day of school.  Ryan with her determination for her future surely will be excited to get to the next step in her life now that she has an idea of where she might want to land (social work), and Brett because it is the necessary of two evils -- stay at home and continued to be home schooled or go to college and move on in her education and be with her peers.  So, off she goes this morning.  Both girls taking a piece of my heart, hoping their day will go smoothly.  I'll worry all day, as they have fun with their friends, and get their books and schedules in  order, but I guess that's just what we parents do -- worry when we send them out into the world.  I know they'll have a great day.