This week I completed the form requesting that Boy 1 be allowed to continue on his current public school track into high school next year. He's enrolled in a program uniquely suited to him, but for which we do not live in the right zip code. This requires we request permission for him to continue each year in the same program.
I've completed this form eight times before. Each time it has seemed rather routine, with the minor exception of his entrance into middle school. That carried with it a twinge of oddness, but knowing he was very ready to move on made it more exciting than strange.
With the second semester of his 8th grade year well underway, Boy 1 is just as ready to move on to the next stage in his life as he was three years ago. I can see the clear, natural, healthy progression of his growth in maturity and stature that makes the prospect of high school exciting to him.
But to me, more than any other event, the transition to high school looms as a portent of increasing change and movement away. More than his first day of school so many years ago marked his transition into childhood, this marks his transition into independence.
Why, then, does it seem like it was just yesterday that I felt his final prenatal kicks as he emerged from the safety of my womb into the world? Perhaps I did, in fact, give birth to a teenager just yesterday.
He cannot have the car keys quite yet!
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