Welcome, parents, to the last week of Summer! Oh, how the tables have turned as we find ourselves excited about what we once dreaded: that first school bell a ringy-dingy-dingy.
I’m particularly excited about our kids going back to school because:

1) Lexi is really bored and
2) Malachi is really bored and
3) Emily is really, really ready for them to go back to school.

For Lexi, it’s back to Lyle Torrant Center. She’ll be pushed and persuaded to work on the stuff that we all tend to take for granted in our kids, things like the ability to talk by a certain age, use fine motor skills, be fully potty trained, etc. Lexi has made great strides forward, and I will occasionally catch little glimpses of what might be going on in that adorable and scheming brain of hers, and it gets me pretty excited. Not until we had a child with Down Syndrome did Emily and I learn to appreciate what it “does” to you as a parent. Clue: mostly good, sometimes painful, but deeply profound either way.

Our son Mac will break the mold by being our first kid in a “typical” public school situation. He was at Kindergarten orientation last evening (I missed it since we were on a staff retreat) and he seemed to really feel good about this whole school thing. Here’s what fascinates me: lockers. They give the kids lockers? Back in my Kindergarten days (almost 30 years ago), we didn’t have lockers. We had wooden 3 foot by 3 foot cubicles that we had to share with three other students. They had been painted over, first to look nice and second to seal in that delicious lead paint, which made them even smaller over time since even layers of paint will stack up on ya. Lockers? Ha! We didn’t even know what thin, noisy metal doors even were! Back in my day (again, almost 30 years ago), we drove cars that were bigger than houses. And our houses were coated in lead paint!
But I rant…

This leaves dear, little 2 year old Zac at home to be with Mommy. And what might they be working on? I like to say that we’re homeschooling him for his first year of preschool. Emily and I see it as a prime opportunity for Zac to rule the roost and not have Lexi punching him for crying or Mac yelling “GIVE THAT BACK! IT’S MINE!” every 20 minutes. Whatever he wants to do, we’ll do, provided it involves potty training and still taking naps. Emily needs the rest.

Oh – I go back to school, too. Nothing big. Just online theological stuff that makes me long for the easy days of single digit youth.

And thank you, Rodney Dangerfield, for proving that we can all…truly and fully… go… back to school.