school daze

This afternoon I stopped in to Charlie's class. I was on my way home from errands, and it was just easier to swing by school and get him; rather than drive home, bundle up, and walk three blocks to the bus stop. Even though it is no longer arctic, it isn't exactly shorts weather.

The whole class was diligently working away (how does she get them to do that 5 minutes before they leave? I would have been tapping my foot, waiting for the cue to bolt from the room). So I walked in and sat in the corner. I love to watch Amy teach. She is SO incredible. She will be the feature subject in posts to come, as just a few sentences cannot begin to describe what she is doing for every single child in that classroom. How lucky we are to have her in our lives this year!

She had them get out their planners, and she was talking to them about what they were going to work on tonight. What they should focus on, how much time they should think about spending on it. I see Charlie raise his hand, and he says "This is going to be FUN. Writing memoirs is even more fun than playing video games!" The mom I was sitting next to looks at me, eyebrows raised, as in 'did you hear what your kid just said?' And Amy is BEAMING, that she has a student who can't wait to go home and do his homework. And I am thinking, 'is this MY kid?'

They are wrapping things up, and I walk up behind Charlie, and he freaks out. "Mom, what are you doing here?" He hadn't even seen me walk in, so then I realized what he said to the teacher was from the heart, not just trying to impress his mother. And Amy comes over and says "Do you see why I just love your kid?"

He excused himself from the dinner table, before Mike and I were even finished, as he wanted to get going on his memoir. He happily worked away, and proudly read it to us when he was done. It was that moment every parent wants to have, every once in a while. When a kid realizes that homework isn't always just a chore, a hurry-up-and-finish-so-I-can-do-something-fun ordeal, that thing that your parents harp on you to take care of every night.

So today, again, life is good. At least for right now. Perhaps I should save this post in a file for his college applications...

Childhood, revisited (or, can food save you?)

Charlie had a really bad day at school: creative differences with his group in science over their advertising project, a friend promising to come over after school, then backing out to play with someone else, and forgetting all of his homework at school. My first instinct, of course, was to feed him. Just like mom used to do. Doesn't it still work?

But I refrained, and encouraged him to go scrape some ice off the driveway instead.

I just remember that feeling, that Monday feeling, when it's gloomy, and gray out, and everything seems to go wrong. It really did start in childhood, didn't it? 'Cause I kind of feel the same way right now. As Scarlett O'Hara said, "...tomorrow is, another day..."

Too bad I didn't plan tater tot hot dish for dinner, with brownies for dessert....