And So It Begins

Last Friday I was off to a women's conference with our church group. I had left a laundry list of instructions for the family. Do those things ever all get done? Not at my house. Anyway, on Friday evening our school was hosting a Harvest Hoedown. Our version of a back-to-school party for the families to go, hang out together and have some good, clean fun. I've been taking the kids each year since HB#1 was in Kindergarten and it's a great time.

Totally not our school.

(Sidenote: It is my understanding that it began as a way to get families out. For free. Kinda like what is described in How to Host a School Picnic. The PTA hires a dj, makes a fall backdrop for family pictures, we send in dozens of finger-food treats, and they have lemonade and water available. Simple right? Now, over the years, it has turned into a festival of sorts, with food and vendors, feeding right back into the spend, spend, spend culture that it was initially trying to avoid. To say that it drives me nuts would be an understatement. What happened to simplicity?  /rant)

Every year since Kindergarten we have taken the family picture, and a few weeks later it comes home in one of the children's backpacks. It's become one of my favorite things about fall. I have all 6 pictures on my desk, a mini-monument to the changing tides of our family... The first picture with all of us, the next just me and the boys since the girl was a cheerleader and Homecoming was that evening, one of them with just 4 of us, and so on. Obviously, I had to have this picture, even if I wasn't going to be in it.

Days before I left I began telling everyone: the kids, HD, our friends, everyone!, that they HAD TO GET THIS PICTURE. I didn't care what else they did, or even if they left the Hoedown after that, but they HAD TO GET THE PICTURE.

All of my nagging hard work paid off, because yes, my boys went early and got the picture. *Pfhew* Mom-disaster averted.

Apparently, after the picture was taken the boys and their dad started wandering through the crowd. HD asked the boys what they wanted to do now?, and the 11yo HB#1 said, "Dad. This is the part of the night that we go hang out with our friends. Go find your own friends."

Aaaahh, the sweet sounds of teenager-hood, blooming right before our eyes.

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