School

Okay, I know that Halloween is a week away, I'm counting down the days till our trip to New Jersey for Thanksgiving, and I've begun (to think about) Christmas shopping but I still have my first day of school pictures that I haven't posted yet, so here's a little trip down memory lane.

Once again, Taylor gets the crummy indoor shot because he has to leave for school at 6:15 in the morning when the sun isn't even thinking about waking up yet... He's having a good year so far. Very, very busy. He's a sophomore this year and still spends half of his day at the math and science center in Battle Creek and half of his day at Albion High School. He's excelling in both places and especially loves his chemistry teacher, his biology class, and band. He has kept busy this fall with all of his school work plus his daily online seminary class, plus scouting, plus playing with the band at all the football games.

Kendall is in 6th grade now. Yeah. I can't believe it either. He's in his last year at the elementary school before beginning junior high next year up at the high school. He's enjoying his teacher this year and loves that his two best friends are in with him. He broke his collarbone a couple of weeks into school, so that was a challenge, but luckily it is healing pretty well and he's out of the sling now. His favorite part about this year is that he gets to be in band. He was sure that he wanted to play percussion. That's what he's always wanted to play. But his teacher encouraged him to try another instrument instead while promising to teach him the percussion as well since beginning band percussion is pretty boring. So Kendall tried out several things and finally settled on the clarinet. The brass was too difficult to play for prolonged periods of time without making him lightheaded, so we thought that might not be a good choice. Some of the other wind instruments caused the same problem, and others just didn't interest him very much. So the clarinet it is. He loves it. And he's picking it up fairly quickly with only a few squeaks and squawks along the way.

Lynnsey is in third grade this year and got the teacher she was hoping for. She is really coming out of her shell more and made a deal with her teacher that she would do at least one thing to participate every morning in front of the class. Her teacher said she's been fine one on one or in small groups but just refused to answer questions or anything in front of the whole class. So now she is! Her favorite subject is still reading--which she seems to love to do until late into the night. And even though she doesn't enjoy it, she is really excelling at math this year.

Probably my biggest struggle this year was letting Spencer go to first grade. I was fine with kindergarten last year. It didn't bother me at all. Okay, maybe just a little bit. But this year has been so hard for me. We walked in on the first day and all those other first graders seemed so much bigger and older than my baby boy that I was ready to walk him right back out again. But he's been just fine. More than fine really. His reading has taken off! He is reading his first chapter book now and is flying through it. (We have a tradition of taking the the kids to a restaurant of their choice for dinner when they read their first chapter book). Looks like that will be very soon.

As hard as it is for me every year to send my kids out the door, and as much as I wish I could keep them small and at home forever; I am just so proud of them for doing their best and growing up to be such great individuals. And while I fight to slow time unsuccessfully, part of me is really anticipating seeing what the future holds for each of them.