Belonging

 Here is something I love about my kid’s high school. Every student is given a “Red Sea” t-shirt at registration. Early on, new students are told “On Fridays we wear red!” And by and large, they do. They all have something red because every single kid gets a shirt. 

These pictures are from a couple of the school’s Instagram accounts. One is of the seniors waiting to welcome the new students this morning. Wearing their link crew shirts. A uniform of sorts. (My kid is buried in there somewhere.)

The other is of the student body. You’ll see some other colors in there, but there’s a lot of red. 

I love this. 

Giving students shirts to wear on the first day (and every week thereafter) takes away a tiny bit of anxiety about what to wear. It makes sure everyone fits in, no matter their economic situation. It helps students feel they belong, right from the start.

It's Been a While - Savoring the "Last Firsts"

 I have not posted in a while.  A long while.

Some of it is the busy-ness of days.

Some of it is that blogging seems sooo 2000s.

But most of it is that as my kids have aged and my day-to-day life has grown increasingly intertwined with and dictated by their lives, I've wanted to respect some semblance of privacy.  

But when my middle kid headed out the door to her first grade of her senior year of high school this year, I looked back at her first day of kindergarten, and I was so glad I blogged.  The seniors at her school do "kid backpacks" as a nod to their younger days.  We remembered that she had a Hello Kitty backpack as a kid.  And a Dora one.  So she went looking for a large-sized one of those.  Even though the colors and themes are no longer of interest to her.  She landed on Hello Kitty and tried for a mostly black one. But ended up with a pink one instead.  But when I looked back at her kindergarten picture, I discovered that she didn't actually use a character backpack at all! (Must have been preschool.)

Anyway, here she is.  Off to her "last first day." 

In fact, today marks the beginning of a series of "lasts."  It's her "last first day."  It means less to her than to me, as we start this march toward post-high school-adultish life.  It will feel slow sometimes, I know.  maybe even painfully so.  But I know I will look back and wonder how it blew by so quickly.  So I'm going to try and saver every "last" this school year.  Hopefully without smothering.