I'm Not As Sad As I Thought About End of Elementary School

This past weekend was full of activities around our youngest son, age 11, a soon-to-be promoted elem school kid.

I am not the best mom about getting my kids or me to needed appts and a couple weeks ago I finally got both of us to the eye doc for an annual visit.  he is our only son who wears glasses.  Sidenote: at his summer-before-Kindergarten check-up I was told his vision was horrible.  Imagine how bad I felt.  Turns out his right eye had such poor vision that it pretty much had shut down which is why it looked off-center in some photos.  The left eye worked hard to compensate.  He got glasses in Kindergarten and after school and on weekends when he watched TV or played video games, we put a patch over his left eye.  I am very happy to say that it worked because in the beginning of 4th grade we were told he no longer needed to patch. 

This summer he will get an appt for contacts but for now he got "Ray Bans" in black:

He wore them to school yesterday and when I asked if anyone said anything he told me that certain kids told him he looked like a nerd and a geek.  If you think that I replied with an age appropriate and politically correct response you would think wrong.

Today I dropped him off at school, for the second to last time.  I never took the other two boys to school -- they went with Dad or the bus--but now I have the schedule that allows for it--here he is telling me, "Please, no flash photography."

Then, Saturday morning Hubs and I got up early and took Youngest to the Peachtree Jr. Road Race in Piedmont Park in Midtown Atlanta.  Hubs and I used to live near there in our DualIncomeNoKids days and it is always a beautiful day.  Youngests' school has 100 kids who run it and they stay after school and practice for the 2-mile run for 6 weeks prior.  He and his friends have run it since 1st grade.

But I have to say I am very OK with this race being a past memory now.  I would tell you about the local ladies who left their nearby homes with three kids in $1,000 strollers that almost ran me over in the crowd but you'd think I was really ugly so I won't.

And then Sunday afternoon was his last elem school, team sport--flag football.  He really enjoyed it but what got to us is that it is every Sunday afternoon from 2:30-4:30.  It was even going to be held on Mother's Day but it rained and then got cancelled.  One weekend I enticed Hubs to go without me so that I could get stuff done.  I'll do anything for this kid, but I was over the three other moms, whom I have known since Kindergarten, whose boys are all in Boy Scouts but mine aren't, and who ask Hubs questions about school, and who leave me out of their click, as nice as I am, initiating conversations, being polite.  Last Sunday was a prime example--I gave Hubs the side-eyed head maneuver indicating there they were in a huddle chatting about what to expect in 6th grade.  Readers, it gets better in middle school sports.

Tonight is the promotion!  There will be tears.  Hubs has to present his 5th grade class and take photos with his own students.  I will be sure to grab him for photos with Youngest.  Last year a 4th grade teacher told my Youngest that he must think he is special when he told her that I was arriving to get him early and he wanted to go up front.  Yes he is very, very special.