As hard as it is for me to believe Caroline is in her last year of junior high, it’s apparently the reality based on her school schedule and all the forms I signed over the last twenty minutes.
School starts a little bit later this year so the alarm wasn’t as jarring as it has been in years past. Although as soon as I was awake enough to realize it was pouring down rain outside, I immediately had my feelings hurt that it was a school day. And it took me a full thirty minutes to remember I was supposed to be packing her lunch.
Caroline stumbled out of bed, ate a bowl of oatmeal, made an outfit adjustment when I informed her suede booties and rain don’t really go together, and then let me take approximately two pictures to document the first day of eighth grade. I’m thinking by next year I’ll just be lucky to get a picture of her back as she walks out the door like the one my friend Jamie sent me of her son today.
Normally we do first day of school pictures on the front porch but that wasn’t possible due to the aforementioned torrential rain. And really it’s for the best because the flowers in the planters on my front porch died sometime in July due to either sadness or extreme neglect and the front porch isn’t really having its best moment right now.
I normally cry a least a few tears on the first day of school but I was dry-eyed this year. The nice thing about eighth grade is that junior high is old news by now and there’s not really anything new to navigate. So maybe that’s why I didn’t cry. Or maybe it’s because I’m a lot tougher than I used to be.
On second thought, it’s probably the first thing.
I spent the day enjoying being able to think all the thoughts in my head and working on book edits that are due at a date that used to seem far away and now? Not so much. And before I knew it, the clock told me it was time to go pick up Caroline from school.
The good news is she reported it was a great day. She likes all her teachers, has some friends in every class and is excited about the year.
The bad news is Piper just threw up all over my living room rug.
Which isn’t at all related to the first day of school, but I thought you should know what I’m dealing with over here. And that I may still cry before the day is over. Just not for the reasons I thought.