The last day of school finally arrived. July 5. It’s been a long year and now, officially, summer has begun.
We went out to dinner that night to celebrate and in the middle of dinner, Liam sagged against the back of his chair like a marionette whose strings had been cut. I thought maybe it was the heat – we were sitting outside in the balmy 98 degree evening – but he said no, it wasn’t that. “It’s just hit me that school is done,” he said. “And it feels really…weightful.”
Weightful. That’s just about right. What they’ve done this year is big: moved to a new country, started not one new school but two, navigated the British way of doing things (their new school follows the UK model), got great grades, made new friends, figured out how to be (mostly) happy.
I think sometimes that my kids don’t know how proud of them I am. I tell them so, all the time, but I wonder if they don’t hear those words; if they only hear pickupyourtoysdoyourchoresdon’thityourbrotherstopyelling.
It’s weirdly difficult to write an “I’m so proud of you” post – snarky is easy, and god knows complaining is easy too. But putting words to paper (digital paper, anyway) about the fact that I think my kids are rock stars…that feels odd. Odd, and yet important.
So let me take a minute and, as Fagin says in Oliver!, review the situation. Continue Reading →
