School Days and Brain Spazzes

Today was the first day of school for my 16 year old. He is a junior in high school -can I just say how incredibly weird that is? It seemed like, for such a long time, he was 5 years old, then all of a sudden he was 10 - now I am looking at a young man who needs to shave (at least once a week), who is taller than me, literally squeezes the air right out of me and who still will come tell me good night before he goes to bed. All of a sudden, he's a junior!!! He still doesn't drive but needs to take the SAT and the ACT! He is starting to think about going to college!

It's funny how my mind can progress from that thought to all the other thoughts I am going to write about but it started me thinking. Bear with me here!

So thinking about my youngest in school - his passion is music, he hates academics - he sings in the high school Men's Chorus, has been accepted to the Chamber Choir, plays bass guitar, some regular guitar, and just yesterday, talked me into renting a 3/4 stand up bass! On top of that, he is taking piano lessons! Musically interested and involved. Will that get him into college? If I start worrying now, maybe I won't be such a freak in a year! So, then thinking about music reminds me that last night he informed me that he has a paying gig for October 31! Then, he reminds me that he needs to practice with his other band this weekend! Wow! All this band talk and performance talk spins my little brain right out of control - he's only 16! So, my brain moves back to the fact that his grades have got to be good this year - this is when it counts. So, then I remember that my next door neighbor, the math tutor, told me that the Algebra teacher my son has is pretty weak - maybe I should go ahead and make arrangements for the tutor. Where will I put a tutor in the schedule, what will he have to sacrifice? What will I have to sacrifice?

Then my brain takes another small side trip - I forgot that I volunteered to be the secretary for the Chorus booster club - which means that I have a meeting tomorrow night. The volunteer stuff always makes me laugh because my kids think it's funny what parents do for their kids! I'm not an uber volunteer - but when I do volunteer, it's best to not run into the kids because they will be embarrassed. They get embarrassed when I am out in public and some man talks to me, or worse yet, flirts with me. That got me to thinking about how weird it must be for celebrity kids to deal with the fact that other people find their parents "sexy, hot." I can visualize the eye rolling that happens at my home, I can only imagine what happens at say, Bono and Ali Hewson's home! Mind you, I have always taken a very open approach to the embarrassing my kids deal - in my honest opinion, it is my right and privilege to be there for them. I mean, really! What a riot!

I too am a student - a college student - this semester I am taking 5 classes - what the hell was I thinking? So, after putting the young one on the bus, I went to my school to buy textbooks. $327.45 later (without the Spanish textbooks that I already own), I am the proud owner of several gently used textbooks. I start flipping through the economics textbook, and once again, I am thinking - what the hell was I thinking?

One more little brain leap later - I'm thinking that I really need to organize some speakers for events that I want to schedule for ONE, trying to figure out how to help the high school students get ONE into their schools...and, oh wait, I need to write my geography professor an e-mail about the geography club, send an e-mail to Heifer International about the pilot program I want to do at my school. I need chocolate and liquid caffeine!

Then my feeble and tired brain moves to the facts that I really need to get in a few more hours at work before classes start - maybe I can pay for my textbooks and some for the other kids in my house who go to college. Which reminds me that I must really be married to a saint to tolerate a peri/pre-menopausal wife who is a full time college student, a 21 year old daughter who also has some moderate hormonal issues, a 19 year old son (enough said) and another son who is going through puberty! God, the man is a saint! What the hell was he thinking?

Tonight yoga starts for the new session - I'm going to try and take the meditation class - will that keep my brain running simpler?

I thought it would be fun to let my brain run away from itself for a little while this afternoon. Kind of fun!

Nancy