Back to School - UPDATED

Across Queensland today, parents like myself are celebrating the return of their offspring to school. I still have Clive and Her Majesty at home, but the loss of 2 for 9 hours a day is a huge deal. And across Brisbane, commuters are gritting their teeth as traffic slows to the speed of snail sex as parents slap the 'bus driver' hat back on to get aforementioned offspring to school. There are few dedicated school buses and with all schools starting around the 9am mark, the morning commute can be something of a nightmare.

With both Miss Thing and Sparky at the same school this year, I have one less school run to make. I drive them 5 minutes to the next suburb (often still in my pyjamas) where they catch a public transport bus to the inner city suburb of Kelvin Grove. Because traffic is so bad and unpredictable, they need to get the 7:15 bus to have a hope of getting to the campus on time. This also factors in the 10 minute walk from the main road up to the school plus a few minutes to catch their breath. If they wait and get the next bus 10 minutes later, the chances are high they won't make it. Mind you, this is a trip that I can make in under 25 minutes when there is no traffic.

I have been attempting to drive the point home with Sparky that with his going off to high school this year, he needs to be more focused in the mornings to get ready on time. I'd have better luck telling the sun not to set. If this morning was any indication of how our year is going to be, I foresee a lot of teeth gnashing. I woke him up shortly after 6am before stumbling out to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and clear my head. He emerged from his room dressed - a good sign - and collapsed into a kitchen chair. I don't have pictures yet as he declared he looked "like a complete steb". I have no idea what, exactly, a "steb" is but it didn't sound good so I didn't push the issue. It was now 6:20am, leaving him 35 minutes to eat breakfast, brush his teeth and pack his bag including lunch as he insisted last night he wanted to do that in the morning. I left him with the directive to eat breakfast as I went to check my emails.

You see my mistake, of course. I left him alone. Miss Thing continued to get ready and I assumed - another mistake - that Sparky was as well. I came back into the kitchen at 6:40 to find the last 20 minutes had been spent... putting notebooks in his backpack while watching television. I got a little cranky, I admit. I know he's probably a bit nervous, and I know he's a slow starter in the mornings. I know he's had a whole summer of waking up whenever he felt like it. I know I should've been more patient. But for the love of chocolate hadn't I spent all last week talking about the need to stay focused and get ready? Didn't I hear "I know, Mom!" after each speech, delivered in that tone of voice that only a teenager can pull of? But when he put bread in the toaster at 6:52 to finally make breakfast I snapped. So he left for his first day of high school with no breakfast and more than a little sulky.

I felt a little guilty about it, but now the more I think about it the less guilt I feel. I firmly believe that one of my jobs as a parent is to teach responsibility, not protect them from it, and if my son is going to fart around all morning after being told multiple times that being late was not an option - there's more to getting to school now than a 5 minute car ride and a 2 minute walk to the classroom - then he's going to have to live with the consequences, like being hungry. Miss Thing and I helped him this morning by packing his lunch, and I will not leave him to his own devices for so long. I'll have to put him with him stomping around as he insists, loudly and rudely, that he knows what he supposed to be doing even as he's not doing it.


But still... they're GONE! Woot woot!



UPDATE: I picked Sparky up from the bus and apparently his first day "rocked". So I guess he got over this morning pretty quickly. He saw some people he knew from his last school, his school before that and his footy club. US readers may think this unusual but public high schools here, especially in Brisbane, can receive students from multiple primary schools, and not always the local ones. I think Kelvin Grove has 2 dozen feeder schools. At any rate he only had two classes today but really likes his English teacher, is looking forward to the rest of his classes and is oddly disappointed that he doesn't have to have either the chicken pox or hepatitis B vaccinations.

Miss Thing only had to be at school today until noon, and then only because she was a Senior Buddy. I made her stay in the general vicinity until 3pm in order to help Sparky get used to taking the bus, however, and will do the same tomorrow when her classes end at 1pm. Such a horrid mother, I know. She spent the afternoon trying unsuccessfully to wheedle money out of me before meeting her brother and then going to work.