written last Friday but only posted this morning...

I feel a little ill this morning.  Maybe more than a little ill.  I've been feeling this way since August 11 when I dropped off Mary Rollins at high school.  Actually, I think this has been coming on since the last day of eighth grade.  All in all, I think I've been pretty accepting of my children growing up -- I was only a little misty on the first day of kindergarten and slightly nostalgic as she went off to middle school.  I've always said I like me children more and more as they've grown up but I confess that high school has thrown me for more of a loop than I ever expected. 

I've been trying to narrow down the root of my angst and I think it started when she came home from orientation to tell me she only knew about 3 or 4 kids at most in each of her classes which doesn't seem possible since half of her middle school transitioned to Henry Clay.  Of course, I guess that's only about a quarter of her freshman class so I shouldn't have been surprised, but still I had this idea that she'd be with all of her sweet little friends that she's known since I dropped her off last week at kindergarten whose parents I know and who I used to read with in 2nd grade and I was their homeroom mom...

Or, maybe it was looking at the boys soccer team players who looked decidedly like a men's soccer team as they were practicing that stressed me out. 

It could have been yesterday's comment, "you know those boys I walk past on the steps into school in the morning, Mom?  They're all smoking."  Snappy mom, said back "Did you tell them it's bad for them."  Quick-witted girl says, "I will tomorrow.  Maybe I should take them my DARE hand-outs.."

Maybe you should funny girl. 

But, I digress.

Monday she told me about the fight in school along with the Language Arts class lesson on why it's bad to kill yourself.

Or, her friend's story last week about sitting next to a girl in Debate class he thought was just on the heavy side until she grabbed her stomach and said, "Oooh, it kicked!"

Or, today in the drop-off line, looking over at the 17-year old boy/man in the BMW SUV next to me wearing his football jersey, needing a shave, checking out those three cute freshman girls walking past the smoker-boys.

I guess this is the time where as a parent you hope you've done the right things or at least packed some of the right stuff in the baggage they carry through life.  For today though, today's one more day that she doesn't have a boyfriend, that she loves school, and is thinking that it would be fun to have an American Girl Doll tea party with her friends to relive the good old days.  Maybe I'm starting to feel a little better after all.