Reagan and Tripp have been students at St. Joseph's for about two weeks now. Can I just say, my kids are troopers! They have done amazingly well! While I was flipping out about where car pool lines up and how to set up a lunch account and, What! Tripp needs a belt?, Reagan and Tripp happily picked out notebooks and pencil pouches, thoughtfully browsed the sneaker aisle and assured me that, "No, mom, really. Last year's lunch box is fine". So, like the troopers they are, school started with little resistance and no tears. Off they went with new shoes and old lunch boxes and listened to class rules and found a place at the lunch table and kids to chase on the playground. What a relief! In fact, it's hard to believe that it's just been two weeks.
Reagan talks about the girls in her class as if they've been sharing secrets since preschool. She has joined the school cross country team and after only a week of practice was bumped up from running 2k, to the 3k that the older team members run. And this past weekend she celebrated a classmate's birthday at a pool party. My girl hops into the car after school, talks non-stop about what, I don't know, and then plops down at the kitchen table to do her homework before disappearing into the tween shows on Nick Jr. or the strange, cube-y world of Minecraft. You can't ask for much more from a 9 year old.
And that little Tripp, he's just a little blue-eyed surprise. It was me, not him, who had a complete meltdown when I saw the workload for his first week. Under interrogation, that amazing little absorbent sponge educates me, with great excitement no less, about penguins and earthworms, the difference between living and non-living things and a noun is a "person, a place, an animal, or a thing, mama". With great pride, he yesterday presented me with his spelling pre-test, a big, ole 100% scribbled across the top. "I got them all right!". So, he then qualified for the more difficult "challenge" spelling list this week. When we head off to his sister's cross country practice he carefully chooses toys that he and his pal, Timothy, can play with while their sisters run laps around them. Today on the way home from school he asked, "Can we get milkshakes?" How could I possibly deny a request from someone who makes me proud.
This isn't to say that we all don't miss the old school, old friends, our real home. Where last year I let the kids snooze until 7:15am, we are now hustling out the door at that time, hoping to hit all green lights so the kids can be on time for the daily morning assembly. St. Joseph School is older, plopped down in the middle of a worn-out neighborhood. It is not bright, shiny and new like St. Mary Magdalene. The gym here serves up lunches before noon, welcomes basketballs and volleyball nets after everyone has eaten. The playground is sandwiched between the school parking lot and some industrial warehouses, large 18-wheelers pulled up to the loading docks in the back. There are no large pine trees dotting this playground. No squirrels jumping branches, no pine cones bouncing to the earth. The thing that I miss the most, the thing that makes me almost teary eyed, is that there is car pool and there is car pool. That is how students get in and out. I miss walking my kids to their classrooms, kissing them good-bye, popping my head in the doorway to ask the teachers a quick question about lunch or homework or volunteer coverage. I miss standing outside school at day's end, hearing that final prayer "Our lady of the highway...". Pick up was a great time to whisper a little guilty gossip with friends, shout out play date plans across the parking lot, hand off uniforms that the kids had outgrown to a mom who could make use. How does one not miss that? How can I be expected not to miss being part of a community, that community?
One way is to remind myself to be thankful. Thankful that Eugene and I can continue to provide the kids with the Catholic education that is so very important to us. Thankful that there was even a Catholic School here in Bowling Green. Thankful that they had room to enroll our children and thankful that Reagan and Tripp slid right into their new environment. I can't stop missing a community so important to me, but I can't stop being thankful either. There is so much to be thankful for.
Tomorrow when I wake up and look at Facebook, I will feel a little sad, but then I will shake it off, wake my kids up and deliver them to St Joseph School. And I will be grateful that they are doing well and growing and thriving and learning, even if they are wearing different uniforms this year.
