Joys of Junior High

As you may know, junior high students are the worst! They are in that awkward transition phase of life and, as such, are obnoxious, immature, violent and cannot be trusted. At least, that seems to be the case at our local junior high. So far, for Me, having Andrew in junior high has been going well. He seems to stay out of trouble and I have only had to go down to the school twice so far this year. (Parent/teacher conferences & to pick him up from school the day he got sick.) I am finding, however, that they have some pretty strict rules in place. The students are not allowed to carry a back pack around school, just to and from their locker before and after school. They are only allowed to carry their books and binders from class to class. No Problem! I'll just make sure I keep my pencils, pens and calculator in my pockets. But what if I don't have any pockets?!? I guess Andrew usually has pockets, so he is doing okay in that area. The latest, though, Andrew comes home from school yesterday looking a little cold. When I ask him why he isn't wearing a coat, he says it's because he doesn't want to have to go through regular coat checks all day and be late to classes. Okay, No Problem, you don't need a coat, except that it's ONLY 25 DEGREES OUTSIDE!!

So goes our junior high experience thus far. Who knows, maybe by spring they'll get some metal detectors installed, have everyone wear identical blue jumpsuits to school and install a LARGE security fence around the perimeter with barbed wire on top! At least, for now, we were able to compromise and we found a couple of sweat shirts for Andrew to wear to school. I am a little worried, though, as the one he is wearing today is a hooded sweatshirt with a pocket in front and, who knows, that might be illegal too! So, we'll have to see how his day goes today. I guess we are luckier than some, living just a couple blocks from the school, Andrew figures he can just run all the way and he won't get too cold before he gets there. I hope he's right :-)