milestones

Without a doubt, the next few months will be filled with incredible milestones. Both boys drove off this morning, school-bound. AW was riding shotgun while LB maneuvered their way to their freshman and senior year of high school. These times are truly bittersweet.

It's exciting to see AW start high school. I'm hopeful his HS career will be um...., less dramatic than his middle school career. He is such a great kid, but he's made some very bad decisions over the past couple of years. The middle school he went to was a miserable place to be. It seems that many of my friends, who've had sons that made it out, had similar bad experiences, but their son came around and turned out for the better. This would include my eldest son, LB. He made his own share of bad decisions, but has shoved his way through and is an awesome guy.

They both make me proud. I saw a bumper sticker recently that I loved. It said "Proud parent...period". A child doesn't have to be an honor student or a gifted athlete for his or her parents to feel pride.

AW will be 14 next month. He now towers over me and has given his brother a run for his money, concerning heighth. We always knew AW would outgrow his brother. Right now, at 3 1/2 years (to the day) apart, they're within an inch of one another.

LB is a senior now and he'll be 18 in March, and with that comes many celebrations. We also have "the lasts". Today I took the last first day of school pictures of both boys. LB will head off to college next year, and although I imagine I'll take pictures each step of the way, he won't start off a new year on the same day as his brother again.

I'll have to control myself over the next several months, so I don't lose it. I feel like I haven't had enough time with my sons. Can't we go back and do like shampoo tells us, you know, to repeat? I tried telling him that I was demoting him to kindergarten. He just laughed at me.

Many friends who've had kids go off to college recently have warned me about senioritis. As sure as there are good times, there will be some bad mixed in. They're convinced that it makes it easier to part with the senior who goes off to college, or leaves home for whatever reason.

This past week is a great example of frustration with my near-adult son. That's a whole different blog post though.

momentous maximus

There are those momentous occasions that make a parent wish time didn't race by at what seems like the speed of light.

first steps, first words, first time they go potty like a big girl or boy, first day of school, first time they go off to middle school and then high school, and...







...the first time they take the car keys to drive themselves to school.

Yep, he did it. I know he did because I called the finance office up at the high school to ask if he'd bought his parking permit for the day. I also emailed his homeroom teacher to make sure he made it to homeroom after parking in the student parking lot.

Girl can't help it...she's a mom!

Funny thing happened because of this momentous occasion...

As I'm outside watching LB drive off, AW is inside getting ready for school at the snail's pace that he exists in. He ends up running far enough behind that he misses the bus. Well, Big B has the Chevy, and you see from the above pictures that LB has the Pontiac.

We only have two cars.

My F-i-L hasn't brought the Malibu down for LB yet, so he's using our cars in the meantime. It's going on 9:30 a.m. and my juvenile delinquent is upstairs skipping school. The lady in the attendance office thought it was kind of funny. The county schools have a half day today anyway, because today is our high school's graduation.

After some studying, and LB's safe return home from school, we'll be heading out to witness another momentous occasion.