School's Out for the Summer!

Last August, I told you about my new little side job of helping a friend getting her kiddo to school every morning. She and I set up that whole adventure on our own, and I'd never even met her son before my first day on the job. It felt a little creepy to drive up to their front door and pick him up when he had no idea who I was or anything about me.

And as I told you back in August, I had no idea what to talk about when he was in the car. At the start of the year, he was pretty into Pokemon (along with the rest of the adult and child universe) but that fizzled out fairly quickly. And so we returned to driving in silence, because he's not a morning person and I'm not nine.

Over the last week, I've been watching a lot of my friends post first-day-of-school and last-day-of-school comparison pictures of their kids, and it's been fun to see how much they've grown in a year's time. And though I have no comparison pictures to show you, I can see how we both grew as this year went by. Not in stature, but in learning to relate.

I stopped stressing out about finding topics and just waited for topics to show up on their own. Sometimes we really did drive in silence. But as the year went on, we tentatively talked about things, and the conversation on his end began to be longer than one word answers!

Our city is apparently playing a game of "how many streets can we simultaneously close" right now, so nearly every day, we had to take a detour of some sort. It became a game for the two of us: how far into our drive can we get before we have to find a new route?

We also watched some building projects and demolition projects (both great sources of conversation for boys), and learned a few lessons along the way (don't drive through flooded streets, the meaning of a BLT sandwich, and more).

By the end of our final day, talk was more than a good morning and goodbye. We talked about the future, as near as summer plans and as far as college plans. We wished for two hour delays (which we almost never got) and counted down to the end of the school. Cracked me up that when he got in the car each morning, he had already crossed that day off the countdown, even though he hadn't even arrived at school.

I learned about fidget spinners, dojos, Fun Fridays, the ridiculousness of long spelling words, and the unfairness of being grounded from an iPad.

But the best moment came on the last day. He crawled in the car, and while I fully expected him to shout about the last day, he was mostly just upset about his new haircut. It looked fine to me, so I waited while he explained why it was so awful. When he finished his story, I said, "Well, that does stink, but the good news is, hair grows. Unless you're Ryan. And then you're in trouble." He laughed right out loud over that line, and that was my end of the year school award. I made him laugh!

Transporting anyone to school was never on my list of things I thought I would do, and there were some days it was hard to juggle it into the busyness of the day. There were winter days when I panicked to Ryan about getting there and back safely. But I have to say, I think it was a good growing experience, and I'm glad I did it.

But for now, can I just celebrate? Because SCHOOL'S OUT FOR THE SUMMER, BABY!!!

Linking up with Tamar!