"Schools Out for Summer..."

-So the chorus goes. We listened as the DJ played this in the background while the last bell of the year rung. We couldn't get these middles-schoolers off campus fast enough. All day we had been trying to keep them from skipping school, and now that they were free to go, they were having trouble letting go. "GO HOME!" we yelled." GO HOME...

Breathe. School is finally out. I am trying to enjoy every bit of the freedom, because I know that once school starts again, it will be like being whisked away on a tidal wave. Surviving this tidal wave will require that I learn to break free from its force and come up for air on occasion until it delivers me once again on land.

Now that I am on land, I am trying to go through the check list of items I kept putting off all year, like washing my car, fixing random broken items, finding a house to purchase, and sleep. Yet, all I want to do is to continue to put these obligations aside so that I may spend time with my wee ones.

They start summer school tomorrow, and I am excited about the prospect of finally being able to participate in their Co-op. All year, their dada had enjoyed this duty, and I am not saying that sarcastically either. He totally loved helping out at the school and getting to know all the other children and parents/grandparents. We DO love our co-op! I only wish they also had a continued elementary school for them. To public school the elder goes, while the young one enjoys the wonders that are a co-op preschool for two more years.

They get to do sooooo much more than most traditional preschools do because the parent involvement makes such a huge difference on what and how they can learn. This year, he road on the Amtrak train with his friends to a beautiful park in Palo Alto, visited a couple theaters to watch a children's play, took a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the planetarium, spent over two months at a beautiful county park, made a trip to the art museum, chased butterflies while flying with their own self-created wings, put on a circus complete with tight rope walkers and ring master, enchanted their parents with their interpretation of The Nutcracker, marched in a parade in celebration of Chinese New Year while wearing traditional costumes in red and gold, star gazed in the still early darkeness of spring, spent a night exploring their schools during a culminating overnight stay, and ...the list goes on. The world would be a different place if all students were taught by a community of loving, nurturing, and interested adults.