Back 2 School

(The S.P. himself---and you thought he was imaginary---taken with a cell phone camera while he was getting his hair and hands done for the new school year. Here's a BIG HELLOOOO and thank'ee to the gang at Truefitt & Hill in Chicago! )

Oh Noooooo! All over the land at about this time of year you can see harried parents doing the back to school shopping.
If you are a "real" prince you have staff to do the grunt work of dragging from shop to shop, wading through a sea of "I 'heart' Troy Bolton" notebooks in search of something more---er---MASCULINE.

Real princes also have the option of having their school uniforms made to measure. The more deposed among us must, however, slog through a grisly day of shoving at Target, and the Ralph Lauren Outlet as we consult our supply and uniform list and pore over packets of pens looking for the eraseable ones the school requires.

Naturally my prince, who feels it his job to make these things as easy for me as he can, has grown out of the size 14 uniform pants I bought him THREE WEEKS ago (He swore they fit! Who was I to disbelieve him?) and now requires a 16---so it's back to Ralph Lauren and the bitterly congested area around the uniform chinos.

This time of year is also the time when all of the summer schedule must be changed to make allowances for the school schedule. Since the S.P. starts back up at the end of August skating and Latin must be rearranged so that they are in the later afternoon. Ballet and swimming are in workable time slots as it is.

None of this, however, is as tough on the old queen here as the thought of Prince Baby going to school at all.
Sigh, last year I homeschooled him---I wasn't familiar with the schools around here and was too late to get him into the place I preferred---we did the tutor thing for those classes I couldn't hope to teach, while S.P. and I worked on literature, chemistry, and economics from workbooks and through the reading of selected books.
Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun by Geoffrey Canada was one of the books. I'd strongly recommend it for a boy. Boys tend to enjoy real books about issues which boys rather than bookish, female English teachers deem important.
This particular book also opens the way to interesting discussions about youth & adult violence and the misery that leads to such scary lifestyles.

S.P. loved homeschooling. Being at home is first of all, a very safe feeling.
You eat when you wish, the curriculum is tailor made ( princes like things that are tailor made) and the biiiig plus is that you get to sleep in!

The main problem was me. I'm notoriously incapable of saying "NO!" and making it stick for longer than...oh, say...a day and a half. I LOVE to see him smiling, and not being one of life's fighters I'm too easy to get 'round.
I'm sure I'm lovely as an adoring parent, but I'm shite as a rigorous teacher. Knowing this, and the future damage it could do to S.P. I set out to get him into a school with good lab facilities (he likes science and math) and a decent academic program all around.

I realize he needs to be out and about, learning from people who don't consider themselves duty bound to protect his joy as well as to stuff his brain with those topics that will enable him to specialize and make enough money to live safely when he's an adult---that is, after all, the point of it, if we're honest.

S.P. gets a kick out of my reaction to the sillier and more pointlessly retrograde conventions of the school dress code.
While wearing a uniform isn't the problem, lord knows I wore one when I was in school, some of the grooming requirements strike me as silly considering how we adults all lived through the '80's. We saw that Flock Of Seagulls hair will no more cause planets to collide than did Beatle boots, but what the hell let's pretend it's 1959 and because we're adults we're shocked by EVERYTHING!

Our final blowout, as free men (more or less), was a trip to Chicago where the above picture was taken while the S.P. was at his favorite barber getting gussied up for the new school year. After this he had every boy's favorite, Steak Frites at the, cute, friendly little Bistrot Zinc.

I'd highly recommend such a day if you have a son on the cusp of teen hood and he's starting to actually WANT to look and smell good.

Ugh, I don't want to think abou it...my baby's growing up!