Ready For School? Maybe

**Note: This was started Thursday when it actually occurred but I didn't finish writing it until now. It is now after midnight on Saturday, so it is technically Sunday and school starts tomorrow.**

School starts Monday. First year in middle school. SCARY!! For everybody. Nervous kid. Nervous parents. Until today.

We're a little less nervous now. We missed the Open House where we could have taken him over to the school to visit. It was the Friday before we left for California. Needless to say, our minds were not on school at that point. Not only that but we didn't think it was in July. We all seemed to remember that Miss Lisa said it was in August. Today was the second registration day so we decided to go over there even though he's already registered. We figured maybe we would be able to wander around a bit and, if we were lucky, find his rooms for him. SUCCESS!! They didn't seem to mind people wandering in the halls at all. All of his classrooms were closed except for the guitar classroom. We wandered in there and he met his teacher and we chatted a little bit. He seems very nice. He thought Sean looked familiar and it turns out he was on the first OMA team at Corbett 9 years ago which was before Sean was there. Very strange. There was another family in the guitar room when we first got there. We ran into them when we were in the other hallway and it turns out that the boy will be in Sean's guitar class. He seemed very nice. The boys compared schedules and that's the only class they have together. We also spoke to the lady in the cafeteria because the lunch menu is totally confusing to try to figure out. She was very nice and explained how it will work. Now if I can just correctly decipher what the main entree is for each day of the month so I know when to send him with lunch from home. She also told us that they get a half hour for lunch. She didn't know when he would have lunch because it varies by which academy they're in. So he'll have to wait until Monday to find that out.

As far as the school itself, Sean is very impressed. It's large. In truth, it's larger than any school I've ever been in and seems more like a high school to me than a middle school. It is a fine arts magnet so there is a 400-seat auditorium. Sean was incredibly impressed with the fact that the auditorium isn't the cafeteria. Sadly it was closed so we couldn't see it. He was also impressed with the fact that you don't have to walk outside to access the library. One of the things he was sad to be leaving was the mural on the wall outside Corbett and the eagles on the walls in the inside hall. (Don't ask me why they had eagles on the wall when they were the Cougars. LOL) Turns out he doesn't need to miss the murals at all. His new school is FULL of murals in the hallways which have been painted over time by the students. The most wonderful thing of all is that he is no longer concerned about being a Unicorn. The first thing he said when we pulled into the lot was, "Look! They changed the Unicorn on the wall." No, they didn't change the unicorn. He just had a false memory of it. I was teasing him a little bit that he could still call it a horned stallion as Lawrence suggested if he wanted to. All in all the school visit was a success. Here's hoping the school year itself will go as well.

After leaving the school things sort of went downhill a bit. We had to get him a new pair of shoes. This is much easier said than done as he has not been wearing closed-in shoes since school got out except for a couple of times. He is also extremely fussy about shoes. I think this is mostly because he is extremely ticklish. It also might be because he sees how difficult it is for John to find shoes and thinks that it is a lot harder than it actually is. Whatever the cause, it is difficult. Finally we were able to find him shoes that were acceptable to him--and they are velcro, which makes Mom very happy. However, he has yet to get the tension correct on them. They are probably a little wide for his feet but if he's happy with them, so be it. We also bought him a new shirt to wear the first day. It's just a plain blue t-shirt but it's what he wanted. Unbelievable that it's not green. It probably would have been if they had green in his size but it's nice to switch it up a little. We had to get him a new backpack as well since he doesn't have one that isn't in tatters. This one is actually a skater's backpack so it has some funky straps on it but he's happy with it. It's black and grey with bright green trim so it looks like something that could belong to Ben 10. He decided not to get a new lunchbox this year but just to recycle what he already has so that was good. Our purchases finished with 5 of Wal-Mart's 20¢ spirals and 5 folders. He already had a pencil case and pencils at home.

So today (Saturday) we got his backpack all ready for Monday. We put his name, class and room number in each notebook and folder. I was going to let him do it but he wanted me to because he likes how my writing looks. Now he has everything packed and ready to go. We just have to put his schedule in there as it had to dry. It somehow got wet on the table outside. Not quite sure how that happened. We also managed to decipher the menu, sort of, and figured out that Monday is the chicken patty sandwich that he likes and Tuesday is the hamburger that he likes. Wednesday and Friday are pizza and Thursday is some unforgettable nasty meal. So two days he can eat and the verdict is out on the pizza until he sees it. The menu repeats every week for about six weeks or so and then they change it up to replace the Thursday ickiness with hot dog for awhile. Very strange the way it's set up. The only things left to do to get him ready are to buy him a new Pink Pearl eraser (he likes them better than the pencil-top erasers) and to locate his Green Lantern shirt. Here we go again--don't ask me how a shirt can go missing in a 580 sq. ft. apartment but it has. Hopefully it gets located because if it doesn't it won't be in the rotation for the first week and I know he wants to wear it.

That's all that's going on in our corner of the world. I hope all is well in yours. Good luck with back to school for those of you dealing with it.