It's the most wonderful day of the yeeeeaaaaaarrrr...

Mark returned to school last week, a few weeks after his cousins and seemingly every other kid in California.

I thought he'd be bummed about it, but he was actually pretty excited.

"You want to go to school?" I asked, astounded.

"I want to see my friends again," he clarified. I nodded; this, I could understand.

He woke up easily the first day, dressed and was ready to go an hour early. Clearly, someone had switched out my kid during the night.

One thing he wasn't ready to do, however, was say goodbye to his kitten, even for just a few hours.

"Kitty!" he yelled, as the little orange fuzzball darted around his feet. Mark scooped him up and scratched his ears, then repeated this about 50 times. Fernando purred each time; clearly, this would be a long day apart for both boys.

"Where did my boy go?"

Mark grabbed his new backpack, obsessively brushed his freshly-cut hair to the side, and made himself the same exact lunch he ate every day last year. He was ready.

His friend Sean arrived. Before they left for school, I positioned them on the front porch, and made them hold up seven fingers, corresponding to their new grade. (I do this every year--don't know what I'm gonna do when they start 11th grade!)

They humored me for a few minutes, even getting into it and making silly faces. Then a group of their friends passed by the house, and they immediately froze up, nodding at the other boys coolly. This is the epitome of middle school; it's all fun and games until someone sees you having fun with your mom.

"Bye," the boys shouted, collecting their bags, and running for the sidewalk.

"Mark!" I called out, sternly. He sighed, turned and dragged his feet slowly back to me. 

"Have a good day," I whispered to him. I hugged him, gave him a quick kiss, and sent him on his way.

Mark had a great first day, although I'm still not quite sure what he did.

"How were your classes?" I asked during dinner.

"Fine," he said.

"Did you find them all okay?" I pushed.

"Yup."

"What's your favorite class so far?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, school just started."

"How are the other boys? Anyone do anything exciting over the summer?" I pressed.

"I. Don't. Know." he sighed, ending the conversation. "I don't ask those kinds of questions."

I stopped talking, and just looked at him, questioningly.

"Seriously, Mom, we don't talk about that stuff," he said.

Suddenly, I realized what it really means to live in the now; it's to live like a 7th grade boy, not worrying about the future (full of looming homework deadlines) or the past (what my friends did last summer--that's sooo last week). If you really want to live in the moment, talk to a 7th grader during dinner. You will learn that being present means just one thing--discussing only what's relevant at that very moment, like why we aren't
having pizza for dinner. All the other nonsense is tuned out, stocked away, unimportant.  

And so ended our meaningful conversation about the first day of school. Later on, Mark mentioned band, and that he was a little nervous about being the drummer. He also mentioned, fleetingly, in passing, and without further elaboration, that he might try out for the school's flag football team. I just nodded, knowing this was all the information I was going to get today, and mentally stored these little informational nuggets away.

Sigh...my friend Jill is right. Motherhood is not for sissies.