School’s Out! (Note to Self: Buy more beer)


Friday was the last day of school for my two junior high children, and as of this Monday morning, they announced they were bored.

“There’s nothing to do around here,” they complained, as if I hadn’t heard them say it the first 27 times.

“You got 3 acres of woods back there!  Build a fort or something.”

“We want to go to Grandma’s!”

“Sold! Get in the truck!”

In reality, this school year was a kind of experiment.  Yeah, I finally sent them to school.  Seriously, in truth, I had home schooled them since second grade.  And, me, being as I am, could never bring myself to buy a curriculum.  I made my own for them, for each grade level.  It was a fun ride and they learned a lot.

Then one day it became apparent that they were way smarter than me.  My God! What had I done?

It was my daughter who first approached me.  Tenderly and cautiously she said, “You know, Mom, I’ll be an eighth grader next year.”

“Yes, honey.”

“I want to go to public school so that I can be among my peers.”

After she and her brother had revived me, I finally absorbed what she had said.  I freaked out - My babies!  My babies wanted to spend time away from me!

Of course, then it dawned on me.  Free time free time ME time!

Hey, yeah, sure, this could work.

So in the fall of 2012 my son and my daughter went off to public school and on a big yellow bus, no less. 

What could I do?  I figured what the hell, so I went to college.  I mean I couldn’t let them keep on getting smarter than me, now could I?

I had no idea what I was in for.  We’d lived a relatively quiet life until then, every day was our own, we belonged to no one’s schedule.  Our hours were so totally flexible.

Reality check.

The first day of public junior high school and The Son signed up for wrestling.  The Daughter came home and immediately confessed she had a crush on a boy (later she decided he was a jerk).  And so it was, in between driving The Son to wrestling practice and meets four or five days a week, The Daughter to ballet and The Self to my classes, all the while hearing the teen gossip, and keeping up with my own lessons, my head never stopped spinning and my gas pedal foot stayed continually numb.  I teetered between being the clueless mother of two teenagers and the only person in my class with gray hair.

Yet, all in all we had a good year.  The experiment was a success and we are actually planning to take on year two.  I am all signed up to go back for fall semester, shortly before my kids start back in September.

But for now we’re all out of school for summer break.  They’re at Grandma’s, and I’ve nothing to do; I’m bored.  Jeez, I think I’ll have to go back in the woods and build a fort or something (out of empty beer cans).