Tuesday, September 04, 2007
School's In
Having children sometimes really shoots home your own memories of youth. This week its back to school. The cloths are all bought, tags with their names all sewed in (the one chore I feign masculine incapability on (the only one I might add)), supplies bought, pencil cases prepped and pencils sharpened. All is ready.
The pleasure though is in how excited the kids are to be going back. It’s a mixed sort of scared and excited, but no less pleasurable for all that. Its new teachers, and for two of them, whole new classrooms of children to meet. My Princess was literally hopping up and down this morning as she got to put on her new dress.
I remember that feeling. Of being just that bit bored by the end of the summer, of not having seen so much of your friends as holidays and trips interrupted, of wondering what was going to be different and what you might learn. I loved that feeling, really loved going back to school. Not that I didn’t enjoy my summers, I always did, but it was an anticipated change that you loose somewhat in modern life.
Then again, as I wrote that line, maybe you don’t. I recaptured some of it in changing jobs, I just didn’t get the bored two months off in between (real pity that (I have a good friend who’s just about to resign this week, and will be sent home for an enforced three month sabbatical (bastard…))). Still, its not as intense as I remember it being, and it didn’t happen like clockwork the way it does when you’re young.
I’m glad the kids are excited, glad at least Pirate Pete has good friends to go back to. The other two will do well. Ali Baba is a very shy boy, but also very likeable. He’s in a very small class (just 8 other boys believe it or not), so he’ll get to know them all. Princess? She’ll be like a pig in mud, no longer only having her older brothers (who’d rather not play with her). I think she’s going to do just fine.
So the world turns another day, and new chapters begin. I love being a parent to watch it through eyes that remember my own happy times. Time to go, the bell’s about to ring.
The pleasure though is in how excited the kids are to be going back. It’s a mixed sort of scared and excited, but no less pleasurable for all that. Its new teachers, and for two of them, whole new classrooms of children to meet. My Princess was literally hopping up and down this morning as she got to put on her new dress.
I remember that feeling. Of being just that bit bored by the end of the summer, of not having seen so much of your friends as holidays and trips interrupted, of wondering what was going to be different and what you might learn. I loved that feeling, really loved going back to school. Not that I didn’t enjoy my summers, I always did, but it was an anticipated change that you loose somewhat in modern life.
Then again, as I wrote that line, maybe you don’t. I recaptured some of it in changing jobs, I just didn’t get the bored two months off in between (real pity that (I have a good friend who’s just about to resign this week, and will be sent home for an enforced three month sabbatical (bastard…))). Still, its not as intense as I remember it being, and it didn’t happen like clockwork the way it does when you’re young.
I’m glad the kids are excited, glad at least Pirate Pete has good friends to go back to. The other two will do well. Ali Baba is a very shy boy, but also very likeable. He’s in a very small class (just 8 other boys believe it or not), so he’ll get to know them all. Princess? She’ll be like a pig in mud, no longer only having her older brothers (who’d rather not play with her). I think she’s going to do just fine.
So the world turns another day, and new chapters begin. I love being a parent to watch it through eyes that remember my own happy times. Time to go, the bell’s about to ring.
