New Adventures

School starts soon. In my family, this year, that means a lot of changes. My sister, an educator in Little Rock, will start this new school year off as a principal.

It’s a first for her, and fulfills a dream she has had for a while now. She will make an excellent one, but there has been a quite a few new and different things to learn this summer. Students think they have it hard going back to school. They should see what the administrators have to learn.

There are a lot of rules, regulations, requirements and restrictions that go into the daily business of educating our children. It isn’t as simple as just walking into the school building and saying "Ok, let’s teach them something today." The paperwork and documentation that goes into teaching them something today is enormous.

This job is a ministry to her, and she will do well. She may occasionally be buried in red tape, but she will be awesome even buried.

My niece Jennifer is in her second year of law school, which means we all are breathing a little easier. We survived Jen’s first year. There were times we weren’t so sure we would make it. We love Jen. But when Jen is unhappy, everyone is unhappy. Jen was unhappy a lot during her first year of law school. The tempest has calmed, therefore the tranquility of our entire family has calmed.

My niece-in-law Tiffany graduated from college in May. Tiffany and my nephew, Michael, are preparing for their first mission trip; which they will take later on this year. We had a hard time having them in Texas. Although we know why they feel the call to go, none of us are going to love the fact that they are in Africa. I’m pretty sure the "no roaming charges" on our cell phones don’t include Tanzania.

Logan will start seventh grade. When I was in school, seventh grade was the beginning of what we called junior high school. Here, seventh and eighth grade is middle school in some areas, and ninth grade starts high school. In Little Rock where I went to school, ninth grade was still junior high, and high school was tenth, eleventh and twelfth.

Junior high school, those grades, that age; was beyond a doubt some of the worst years of my life. I did not make a good young teenager, from 13 to 15 or so. I don’t know what it was. I’ve heard all kids that age sort of go crazy for a while.

Maybe they put the kids that age together in school to contain the craziness to one campus. Knowing how weird my feelings were, how crazy some of my thoughts and actions and ideas were isn’t doing anything to make me look forward to the next few years. Teachers and others that choose to work with this particular age group probably deserve some sort of combat pay.

I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get to hold Logan’s hand and reassure him on the first day of school like I have done in previous years. It would look pretty funny with me looking up - way up - to encourage him. He is inches and inches taller than me now. And it would humiliate him to no end. My little boy will be a teenager, walking through the doors where other teenagers are to embark on another year.

In another place, other members of my family will be taking their next steps. Tiffany and Michael continue to save money, and continue to learn a new language. Jen will walk through the doors of the law school to start another year of preparing for her future.

Teresa, Mrs. Richardson, that is, will be standing inside the doors of her school, where other parents with young sons and daughters will be. As she embarks on her own new adventure, she will welcome those little ones to their new school year, as they begin a new adventure themselves.