Well, we’re rocking the school year now. We have a full week under out belts and we’ve almost established a morning rhythm.

I’m back to playing taxi to the various schools in the morning as I toddle off to work. We have a kid in each level this year; elementary, middle and high school but I only transport the younger group and their friends. My daughter is walking again this year. It’s not far and the exercise is good for her.

One of the new passengers I have in my little roller sk8 (the kid’s nickname for my Rio) is a boy from church. His family is in our small group (a group of about 10 people which meet in the eve on some Sundays for the purpose of getting to know each other outside of the formal church setting) and when we found that he’s going to the same school as Robo, it was natural that we had him come along with us.

So that Monday he shows up, very punctual, and sits down patiently waiting in our living room for the cue to load up the car. He’s a very nice, unassuming young man with a poetic soul, and when I finally saw him he was sitting quietly in an armchair, hands clasped on top of the binder on his lap, watching the chaos that was swirling around the rest of the house. You could see just a flicker of controlled flight instinct glimmering at the back of his eyes. This past summer my daughter had a sleeping over with a friend from out of town that she had known in first grade. At one point my daughter asked her what she thought of our family, to which the friend replied, “I like it. It’s really cool here---like living inside a situation comedy!” I think the new little dude was feeling the full effect of that vibe right then. Of course, on this first day it was a comedy populated by a grumpy dad and cranky kids because no one was really handling the earlier wake up time with a whole lot of grace at that point.

I thought the other morning, how strange it is that I have this impulse to fill my vehicle full of school kids every year. Almost a compulsion. Every time I hear of someone near who is going to a school I go by on my way out of town, I’m right there offering to bring them along until I run out of room. I wondered where this came from. Then a little voice in the back of my head said---Duh! My mom, when I was a kid, ran a daycare out of our house growing up, and we had a big red van that she filled to the brim with kids, morning and afternoon. Compared to me, she was her own bus route. She’d hit three or four grade schools plus the Jr. High. And do all again in the afternoon. So I guess it’s genetic.

My daughter is really enjoying her year so far. She had auditions tonight for her first non-musical school play. She’s getting ready for her Speech competitions (where she won’t be giving a speech but acting in dramatic scenes like last year). She is also very psyched that in choir this semester the class has been broken in to several smaller groups and each of them will be assigned to write a short musical (both songs and script) based on a fairy tale that they will then perform next semester. She says that has been a dream of hers and she’s so excited that she gets to do it before she even gets out of high school.

Robo is liking Middle school just fine. He is looking to trying out for football and choir and possibly taking drum lessons on the full kit. For years he’s had friends his age fragmented into all kinds of different little subgroups---like his friends from school, then his friends from scouts, then his friends from the neighborhood, and his friends who were kids of friends of ours. Now they are all pretty much going to the same school, and a fair number of them share classes and lunch with him. And if that isn’t enough, he’s making new friends as well.

Lemur is a bit hard to figure out at this point. He comes out to the car the other day and sits down in what might be a bit of a huff, but mom is not sure. So she asks about his day. He just tells her that they had recess and lunch and did a bunch of other dumb stuff, “and that’s all you’re going to get out of me!” Ok, then---name, rank and serial number it is. But then later when I talk to him while I’m putting him to bed he’s all chirpy and tells me that he likes his teacher; “she’s fun!” I think we may need to talk to the teacher directly to get the full scoop of how things are going.

So here we are now, into our first weekend of the school year. Hopefully there will be some sleeping in on Sat morning----I’m gonna need it.