turn, turn, turn

Fall's crispness is finally in the air. The leaves are just beginning their annual encore of color. Pumpkins, scarecrows and mums dot every house.

And it's the season of Catholic high school open houses.

(That sound was my heart dropping into my feet.)

Gah.

How did we get here already?

Tide is in 7th grade, so we have another year of middle school ahead of us, but come next fall, we have to decide to WHICH high schools he is going to apply, which means we need to visit them now. (He can visit two schools on his own next fall on "Shadow Days" where he'll spend an actual school day with a student. I still remember how unbelieveably nervous I was on my Shadow Day 10 years ago. Ok 20. (Or maybe more.) (Ok yes, MORE.) (Sheesh.))

So today, we went to our first (of OMG x 4 = soooo many) high school open house.

And I do believe I may have been the ONLY parent in the beautiful chapel with the soaring arches and the gigantic stained glass windows who started tearing up during the welcoming speech.

Poor Tide. It's bad enough that he has to appear in public with his parents for these gigs. But to have the only mom who is surreptitiously wiping away TEARS while they're talking about the National Honor Society?

Mortification.

He just looked so small next to those tall lockers. We walked the manicured football field and I can't even imagine him running the whole way around its track. We saw the student parking lot. Dear God, could he really be pulling a CAR in there in a few years?

I'm going to need some plugs for my tear ducts to get through this process because I'm all welly again just thinking about it.