School Days

 The boys started first and third grades last week.  If you click on the picture below you can see Tyler's missing front teeth smile - he makes the perfect first grader with no front teeth.  When I taught first grade my favorite way to get the class' attention was to quietly say "If you can hear me, smile big" - then I couldn't help smiling big myself at all those adorable, gummy smiles.

 This was by far the smoothest transition into school we've ever had with the boys - Cameron especially.  He was excited the first morning, he behaved at open house, and it's like he's been there all along.  He already has a relationship with his teacher this year (because she's one of my closest teacher friends and our families hang out sometimes) and I think that helped tremendously with the transition.  She's also super cool and amazing with her students - and Cameron is also older and has matured a lot.

Tyler said to me at breakfast the first morning, "Mom, whenever I'm REALLY excited about something, I don't forget it all night."  I know exactly what he means - I wake up all night long thinking about an important occasion sometimes, too.  He was next to me in the bathroom getting ready with mousse and a comb trying to get his hair to stick up in front and he said, "my hair just is not cooperating."

 Here's one of those turns life can take that reminds me you never know what's coming just around the corner.  Once upon a time, 19 years ago, I was a brand new college freshman brushing my teeth in the dorm girls' bathroom.  A very friendly, bubbly girl looked at me shyly and introduced herself as Nissa.  She had grown up in Ashland and I grew up in Hillsboro.  Now she lived 4 doors down the hall and we became fast friends, sorority sisters, and eventually rented an apartment together after college.  The year following college we both got engaged - I moved to the beach and she moved to Tualatin.  We kept in touch sporadically, as college friends do.  Then this summer her husband won the position of vice principal at Seaside High.  That's her first grade daughter seated right next to my first grade son in the same classroom in this tiny coastal town population <1,000.  Now she lives 4 blocks down the highway.  Who could have ever predicted that?