Bring it on, Middle School!

Nate is growing up. In just a few months he will turn eleven. I can clearly remember the day that I finally brought him home from the hospital and walked into our little apartment and was overcome with joyful tears of relief....knowing that we had finally created a "perfect" family. It was an overwhelming feeling of love and extreme accomplishment and I will never be able to adequately put that moment into words.

Nate has recently been talking a lot about middle school. Last week he had a visit from his soon-to- be band teacher. In the past year, Nate has wanted to play saxophone (ew!), clarinet, drums (ew again!), and trumpet. We were very happy with the last choice since we had a free one just sitting in the closet! Anyway, the band teacher decided that Nate's mouth was "too big" for a trumpet and chose the trombone for him instead. Nate, in his cool and calm style just rolled with this new unexpected path. He is now quite happy with the manly choice of instruments and looks forward to band next year. I, on the other hand, have started collecting monetary donations for this "manly" yet very expensive (!!) instrument.

His class took a trip over to the "new middle school" today. This is a great relief to me because Nate is a worrier when it comes to change. Remember the food trying thing? Anyway, I was hoping that the visit would calm his imagination down so that he won't get sick the night before school starts. I can't recall a year that we haven't been up half the night going through "anxiety pains". Trying to be sensitive to this anxiety thing, I didn't press him for information but I did get small comments like: "My new school is HUGE" and then he quickly and bravely added, "but it will be o.k. because our lockers are going to be "magically" placed next to our first period teacher". (I guess Dumbledore will be working his magic this summer.) He said that he is very worried about getting lost but I quickly reminded him that just 3 years ago he had a whole new house to get used to with lots of new rooms and bathrooms and he managed to find his way around in just a few minutes! He just smiled, shook his head at me (like I was stupid), and walked away. Why has he started thinking that I am stupid? I'm not sure if I am going to do well being a middle school mom. Maybe I need lessons. But, I have this perfectly precious picture to keep me persevering FOREVER: (make sure you read the words on the the shirt!)

--oh yes... she does!