Things That Annoy Me Thursday: My Boy Growing Up

This isn’t an annoyance per say…

But.

Okay, well I have a son. And he keeps coming home with papers about…gulp…MIDDLE SCHOOL.

Yes, he’ll be in middle school next year. Well, THIS year technically.

And I am so not ready for it.

He came home with information about joining the middle school band and a lump immediately formed in my throat. It was happening. He’d be in middle school.

“So you want to join band?” I asked him.

“No. Not at all,” he answered.

Oh.

Well, I’m not surprised. He’s not interested in things like that. No, he loves learning about the weather, George Washington, Mario (as in, video game Mario..)

“You can do string, percussion, choir…” I continued. “I did choir in middle school. I was awful at it though. I’m tone deaf, as you know, but I decided to try it. And sometimes the teacher would call on each of us to do a solo and I swear, he’d wince when I did mine. It was—”

I realized Tommy had left.

Oh.

Then he came home with an entire BOOKLET on what to expect in middle school. I almost panicked when I saw all the different classes. Math. Social Studies. World Geography. English.

How would he know where each class was?

What if he got lost?

What if someone pushed him in his locker?

What if he COULDN’T OPEN HIS LOCKER?

His fine motor skills aren’t the greatest. He struggles with tying his shoes. How would he manage twisting a lock to the appropriate number?

Then he came home with another paper where he could pick his electives. ELECTIVES!

Naturally he picked Hands On Science and something about historical figures.

I just don’t feel ready for this.

I mean, wasn’t he just this:



And now he’s off ot middle school? Where there are…DANCES! (Although he says he will not go to dances because he says A) he can’t dance and B) girls make him nervous and talk funny.)

This is a whole new ballgame. And the fact that he has Aspergers is going to make things a little more difficult. I don’t want him to get swallowed up. He has meltdowns when he’s confused. I do not want him to break down and cry and get teased. He can’t NOT cry. He’s a crier. That won’t ever change, I don’t think.

I seriously feel like I want to breathe into a paper bag sometimes when I see all these middle school papers surrounding me. I wish we were still at our last base where sixth grade was still considered elementary school. Then I’d have one more year to collect myself.

But no.

It’s coming.

Soon.

And I’ll have to prepare myself.