Fifteen Days

Back to School can be full of big feelings. Teachers have to go back to work. Homeschoolers get back to having to juggle teaching and home life under the same umbrella. Some parents are sad to see their kids get another year older. And, there are certainly plenty who dread the added structure, homework battles, and extracurricular activities that fill the school year. There are adjustments after having a summer of sleeping in and taking family vacations.

But, there are a few of us with a much more optimistic view. My tribe treats it like its own national holiday. We function better with routine. We love vacations and whirlwind summer plans, but we believe part of what makes them special is that they're limited to a couple blazing hot months each year. Scarcity ups their value. And man, we can't wait to get back to a place where our kids' expectations for constant excitement and entertainment takes a long loooooong break. Welcome back to school, kids. Honestly, the next 9 months would be valuable, even if all they learned was that they aren't actually the center of the universe.

Last year, I posted a count down on Facebook several times throughout the summer. I was so ready to join the ranks of mothers with no more kids at home all day. My son was going into 2nd grade, my daughter was finally starting Kindergarten, and I was the opposite of sentimental about it. I was thanking Jesus for blessed freedom. If I'd been blogging during that period, you would have been treated to the written equivalent of a dance party. 

This year is just as exciting, but a lot about it is different than we would have thought based on the beginning of last year. Both of our kids will be adjusting to something unexpected, and maybe a little bittersweet.

Our son is a pretty brainy kid, so he started the GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) program at a new school last year. It was an amazing, rigorous program with extra funding and lots of enrichment options. We loved his teacher. He was in computer programming and robotics clubs after school. He told everyone he knew that he was in GATE, because he thought it made him pretty special. But, he isn't going back. We decided to re-enroll him in our neighborhood public school for 3rd grade. It was a difficult decision, and if I believed the school experience was only about academics, we probably would have stayed the course. But we believe the school experience is as much about community and friendship as it is about reading and math. We really like our community. We love that our kids are in classrooms with their neighborhood friends, and we deeply respect the people who run and teach at our local school. (And we're lucky. Our school is one of the top performing schools in the city. As it turns out, it isn't really that drastic of a change academically, even without the extra funding and enrichment.) His GATE program isolated him from his community to some degree, especially since that awesome program had one big flaw: It was in an area most people wouldn't even drive through after dark. In fact, a few nights ago, there was a murder right across the street from the school. So, we made a change. Wyatt was disappointed when we first told him, but now he's looking forward to being back in class with the kids he started Kindergarten with.

Kindergarten is probably my favorite grade. In fact, it was such an awesome experience for our daughter, that we've decided to do it all over again! Yep, our girl is repeating Kindergarten. It's another thing we didn't really see coming at the beginning of the last school year. She's not actually behind. She meets all of the grade standards. On paper, perhaps, it's a strange decision not to promote her into 1st grade. But we once again come to our belief that school is about more than academics. Neva was the youngest kid in her class last year. Several of her classmates were a full year older than she was. After doing some reading on the topic, we decided we wanted to give her the chance to be one of the oldest in her class going forward. We think it'll benefit her academically, but more importantly, it'll benefit her socially in terms of confidence and maturity. We had a rare opportunity to give our daughter an advantage, so we took it.

In 15 days, we'll have a 3rd grader and a Kindergartner. But who's counting?