August. It means a lot of things. The end of summer. The\nkind of Florida heat that makes lava look like Laffy Taffy. When the tropics\nfire up and start shooting storms at us like a baseball pitching machine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of all, August means it\u2019s time to start thinking about kids\ngoing back to school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a parent, I\u2019ve found that some years the return to the\nacademic realm feels routine and unremarkable. I just have to remember where my\ndaughter\u2019s school is (I don\u2019t), that I need to start waking up earlier again (I\ncan\u2019t) and that I need to resurrect that wonderful routine of screaming like a\ndrill sergeant, \u201cGET OUT OF BED NOW, CHILD!!! YOU ONLY HAVE THREE MINUTES UNTIL\nFIRST BELL!!!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then there are years that come with extra bits of\nemotional baggage. The milestone years. Like when you start a new school level:\npre-school, elementary school or middle. They\u2019re new and scary and signify the\nstart of some brand new journey in life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
OR \u2026 you get set to finish a level, which is where we are\nthis August as we launch into eighth grade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
EIGHTH grade! The last one before high school.\nDum-dum-Dummm!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s getting real, folks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Routine, and yet all the emotional baggage. Because it\u2019s a\npiece of cake this year. We know the school. We know the drill. Our daughter is\ngoing to be some kind of orientation leader so she can help 6th<\/sup>\ngrade newbies better learn and acclimate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I would call it all mundane IF NOT for the fact that I know\nthis is also big time. Eighth grade is the closing out of the junior years as\nwe emerge into the young adult ones. It\u2019s like the moon shot. Uncharted\nterritory. A land where I have no map, no compass and a pretty good inclination\nthat I will freak-out a lot and pretty much say the wrong thing at every turn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This summer my daughter took an online algebra program to\nget her ready for a math class she will be taking. It was horrible. If evil\nnations wanted to torture spies, this is what they should use. In just a couple\nseconds they could extract whatever information or confession they wanted. It\nwas cruel and painful and made me understand that the world is an angry,\ncorrupt and vile place filled with weird numbers and strange words that don\u2019t\nmake any sense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean, what the heck is an \u201cinteger\u201d or a \u201ccommutative property?\u201d\nAnd how can numbers be \u201cirrational?\u201d Numbers can\u2019t be irrational! I\u2019m\nirrational \u2026 like when I start screaming, \u201cI don\u2019t know what the answer is,\nchild! I suck at algebra! I\u2019ve never used it in my life \u2026 STOP TORTURING ME!!!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it gave me a glimpse of this new world we\u2019re moving\ninto. High school, young adulthood, boys, life. It\u2019s all going to be like\nalgebra \u2013 lots of weird words and not a bit of it makes any sense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was out running the other night, and as I passed three\nwomen walkers, I heard one say, \u201cSo, explain that thing about kindergarten\nagain.\u201d That\u2019s all I heard. That\u2019s all I needed to hear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I wanted to stop and say, \u201cI\u2019ll explain it. All you need to know is, it\u2019s easy. It\u2019s super simple. It all makes total sense, even when you don\u2019t realize it, and while it might seem terribly scary now, you don\u2019t know what scary is.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n And then, right before running off, I would say, \u201cJust wait until the \u2018integers\u2019 come for you!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" August. It means a lot of things. The end of summer. The kind of Florida heat that makes lava look like Laffy Taffy. When the tropics fire up and start shooting storms at us like a baseball pitching machine. <\/p>\n Most of all, August means it\u2019s time to start thinking about kids going back to school. <\/p>\n As a parent, I\u2019ve found that some years the return to the academic realm feels routine and unremarkable. I just have to remember where my daughter\u2019s school is (I don\u2019t), that I need to start waking up earlier again (I can\u2019t) and that I need to resurrect that wonderful routine of screaming like a drill sergeant, \u201cGET OUT OF BED NOW, CHILD!!! YOU ONLY HAVE THREE MINUTES UNTIL FIRST BELL!!!\u201d <\/p>\n No problem. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[575,561,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-nutshells","category-family","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1960,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959\/revisions\/1960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}