Middle School

Back to school today.  Back to the grind.  Back to carpool, busy schedules, and homework.  Back to reality.

It is such a strange day.  Aidan started middle school today.  It just doesn't seem possible. 

I am a believer that you can't prepare your children for life by trying to make everything perfect for them.  Certainly my generation of parents spends a lot of time doing just that and I am guilty of it for sure.  But middle school is such a rite of passage.  Just the words "middle school" give you a feeling of awkward transition.  Maybe because that's what it was for me.  It is a time of enormous growth, change, and self-discovery.  All kinds of social changes and fluctuating hormones rule and confuse the young mind.

And we can't warn them.  We can't protect them from what is about to come.  We know that they will inevitably have crushing moments of heartache and self-doubt.  We know that they will encounter ugliness and feel left out.  They may not make the team.  They may not fit in with the crowd.  We send them off to school today, knowing that they will have that moment of panic when they are looking for their friends at lunch and hoping that the table is not full when they get there.

We have all been there.  We know this is about to happen to our kids.  But we have to let them live through these awkward situations because they teach our kids to be resilient and strong.  The hardest part for us is that we have to watch the train wreck.  And those are our kids in that train wreck.

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body".  So, so true.  My heart is at that middle school today.  I can't wait for it to come home and tell me all about it.