Back to School, Part I

     Today was the day. The weeks of lazy, hazy, ice cream for breakfast days were at an end, and my sixteen year old woke painfully early, scarfed a breakfast of corn fritters, and got ready for The First Day Of School.
     What a change a year can make.

     This time last year he was a shy, unsure, introverted boy, heading to a new school. Familiar classmates were there, but it was still such a change, and sometimes a hard one. Today....
today my son is a confident, self-assured, self-directed young man, eager to return to work, to begin studying the science he so loves, ready to embark on the first leg of the journey to adulthood. As I watched him walk to the bus stop this morning, on his way to begin his Junior year of high school, I sadly realized that as of today many things are at an end. My little boy, my first-born, is an adult now, at least in most ways. He will be learning to drive. He is applying for jobs. He is researching colleges. He still needs me, not quite as much or in the manner that he used to, and that is fine. But I need him too; ages ago, when things were about as bed as they could be, he was my reason for getting out of bed in the morning. Inside he's still my baby boy, my Boodah, and I'm so very very proud to be his mother. Congratulations on beginning Junior Year, Henry. Much love, Momma
 
 
Henry attends a technical school, so while he dresses for a day at the office, some weeks he needs to adopt another mode of dress:
and so here he is, my sixteen year old machinist-son, far more knowledgeable about things I never even knew were vital to people's every-day existence. He's just amazing.

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