Halloween and school plans

We had a perfectly delightful Halloween. So great to have things back to normal and not so full of fear. I didn’t get to go to the carnival after all because my band threw together a gig instead, but the school Halloween parade resumed Monday morning, and we went trick or treating earlier in our favorite Eagle Rock neighborhood which was a good call as it was less zoo-like at 6 pm as opposed to 8 when we used to go. After too many uses, Theo’s blow up dinosaur costume had holes and kept deflating which bummed him out, but Bobby’s Black Knight costume was a hit for those who got the reference. We even were able to have a chill dinner in the neighborhood and get to bed at a decent hour. Such a contrast from the truly dangerous and scary NYC Halloweens of my youth. I still expect awful things to happen on that night and am always shocked when it’s just a nice, pleasant time. 

Yesterday I toured the Eagle Rock school I want the kids to go to for jr/sr high. It was pretty much as I expected - it’s an older school, built in the 20s, so it’s not flashy, but has a long, illustrious history. I think it’ll be a good fit for the kids, but you just never know. That fall of 2024 is going to be a real nailbiter as far as how Bobby will adjust. I like to think these kids are pretty adaptable - they’ve never once had issues with going to new schools or places. But I don’t know what 12-year-old Bobby will be like compared to 10-year-old Bobby. I imagine he’ll be a lot like me - earphones in, music blasting, eyes on the ground. I hope some of his friends go there. I figure his chances of being admitted are decent, but no guarantees. Still, if he doesn’t get into the gifted magnet he can still be in the regular school and have access to a lot of the higher level classes, so it sort of doesn’t really matter. It feels good to have a plan in place and know what to do. Many of the other parents are still undecided at this point and I feel for them. That was me a couple of years ago.

Bobby pushed me to my limit this week, which is something that hasn’t happened since the violin days or the encopresis days. Boy, when he doesn’t want to do something, look out! He pretty much decided he doesn’t want to walk home from school anymore, and has turned it into this massive campaign that’s dragged on for weeks and driven me absolutely nuts. The apex of this was, on Wednesday, staying at school until after 5pm (he’s supposed to leave at 4) when it was getting dark, and telling me (via his kid watch) that now I’d have to come get him. Nope, nope, nope. “We” had a discussion with him I which we told him this kind of behavior would not be tolerated, and, thank god, he just came down yesterday. I definitely have wavered in my mind about the walking - maybe it’s too much for them? With daylight savings ending this weekend, maybe I need to just go get them from now on until it gets lighter again? It’s no skin off my nose to pick them up - I’m always home at that time - but as stated before, I’m doing this because I want them to have a little freedom, this is their only chance ever to walk home from school, and I want the flexibility to not be here sometimes (especially if I travel, which I will this spring). But it’s turned into this terrible, exhausting tug of war that had me at my wit’s end this week. It gave me an unpleasant peek into the future when these kids will be a lot more disagreeable than they are now, and I didn’t like it, not one bit.