Yesterday, I had one of those bittersweet parenting moments. (We're at "high school graduation minus eight weeks" now — I'm expecting a lot of these in my immediate future.) Yesterday, I did something for the last time. And, for a change, I actually realized it. All right, not right at that moment; it was about five minutes later, but still ...
Yesterday, I made my last school lunch.
"Whoa."
Yesterday was my teenage daughter's final day of regular classes. We have April break next week, then she will only attend first-period AP Bio each day before heading off for her senior project internship.
Thus, the last lunch.
I repeat, "Whoa."
To put this in perspective, my daughter has been going to school full-time since she was three-going-on-four. If we think about 180 days per year for 15 years, minus maybe 10% for half-days, that's ...
Well, that's ...
Um, that's ...
That's a sh*tload of lunches.
Starting in preschool and all through elementary, middle and high, I dutifully packed a lunch more days than not. We went through many lunchboxes (Power Puff Girls, Brady Bunch, Nightmare Before Christmas, a personalized cooler-pack from L.L. Bean). The first few years, her lunch of choice revolved around a basic food group: the chicken nugget. Eventually, she was willing to bring sandwiches and wraps. A few years ago, she graduated to salads.
Apparently, I made a mean lunch salad because she used to sell my salad services for $5 to some of her friends. It didn't make that big a difference to me, just had to chop extra lettuce and extra chicken breast, shell an extra handful of edamame, sprinkle some extra cheese, fill an extra container with extra vidalia onion dressing.
With all that "extra" work on my part, who do you think got the $5?
Here's a clue. Not me.
Nevertheless, like some of her other entrepreneurial efforts, the salad business quickly fell by the wayside.
Making lunch has never been a particularly special part of my day, more like a mindless ritual. It takes about 20 minutes or so and I try to make each one creative and relatively healthy. In addition to the main course (be that one of my famous salads or a more pedestrian sandwich), I include fruit, a snack-size bag of something crunchy (and, I admit, decidedly un-healthy — like Cheese Puffs), a sports bottle of water, and a small treat. My daughter (like her lovin' mama) has a sweet tooth. I only recently discovered that in addition to the dessert I was giving her, she also bought cookies at the cafeteria.
So much for my relatively healthy lunches.
These cookies, allegedly "the only edible thing" they serve, are oversized, with chocolate chips or M&Ms. They cost $1.
Yesterday, my daughter treated herself to two of them.
After all, it was her last lunch.
If you've enjoyed this post, I invite you to order the book Lovin' the Alien here.
My teenage daughter long ago decided to do a Senior Project. A Senior Project was and is absolutely indispensable to her life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
And, because she waited until the very last minute (despite knowing the requirements and deadline for months), last week found her hustling to secure her internship.
There is much to say in defense of the eleventh hour. That little rush of adrenaline can actually make us more focused. Not that I have too much experience to draw from. I tend to be more of a planner. In fact, in four years, I only pulled an all-nighter once at college (well, only once because of schoolwork as opposed to partying or working a graveyard shift at my summer job). I had to write my thesis paper for "Aesthetics and Criticism in the Arts." This was years before word-processing, but only days before my graduation. I sat down with a 2-liter bottle of TaB and wrote the entire paper in one night on my portable electric typewriter. Not exactly my shining hour, academically. But, I did earn an "A" and a valuable lesson.
Procrastination isn 't always bad.
Of course, I never said as much to my own daughter.
She figured it out all on her own.
Anyway, there she was less than a week from the due date for all her materials and she didn't have an internship yet. Even my typically implaccable daughter was starting to worry.
She reached out to two potential sponsor organizations: a state-run animal rescue farm about an hour (several towns and three highways) away, and a therapeutic riding center somewhat closer by.
"What if I don't hear back from them soon enough?" she worried. I resisted my usual jump-in-and-fix-it approach to life (to her life). There were still a few days and I decided to let her solve it herself. Worst case, I rationalized, she could simply continue volunteering at the stable she's worked at for the past six years or so. It wasn't what she wanted, but maybe it would teach her not to wait so long next time.
Not this time.
The animal shelter did get back to her. Even better, they were thrilled by her interest and resume, and very eager to hear more about her "large animal" experience. In fact, they scheduled an interview for the very next day. She went, met with the stable manager and volunteer coordinator. They quickly agreed that the internship was a great idea all around. She left with signed Senior Project paperwork and a confirmed schedule for her six-week assignment.
When she had first set up the meeting, I'd immediately thought about how I could clear my own deck. "I'll go with you," I'd offered, thinking it would be a good time to catch up.
"No, thanks," she'd responded instantaneously. "I think it's better if I go by myself."
Of course it is, I realized then.
And, of course it was.
If you've enjoyed this post, I invite you to order the book Lovin' the Alien here.
We are really in the home stretch now. My daughter's second quarter report card was released yesterday (she managed to keep her grades up despite a growing desire to be done with high school forever — or longer if that's possible). She has one more quarter of regular courses left, then ... Senior Project.
(With an AP Bio test squeezed in there somewhere.)
You may have noticed that I initial cap'd the words Senior and Project. That's because it is very much a proper noun. Senior Project. Senior Project. SENIOR PROJECT! It's something to aspire to, to revere, to regard with awe. Senior Project is a legend that you hear about when you start as a freshman. It offers fantastically adult promises — like open campus, no classes, and an internship.
The internship must be unpaid, but other than that, the field is fairly open. Some kids volunteer in hospitals or as teachers' aids. Some work in offices or libraries. You could build with habitat for humanity or work in a soup kitchen or community garden. My daughter will no doubt find (yet another) opportunity to work with horses.
For a while there, my daughter and her classmates thought the very existence of Senior Project might be in jeopardy. When she was a sophomore, a new principal came in and made seemingly countless, wide-reaching changes, eliminating many of the squishier bits of how the school had been run and adding rules, regulations, processes and procedures. Senior Project was in his cross-hairs for a while, and the underclassmen held their collective breath. Whether someone made a solid case for it (thank you, someone) or the principal ran out of steam or, perhaps more likely, he realized that the lunchroom is overcrowded and getting most of the seniors out of the building would be blessed cafeteria congestion relief ... who knows? The point is, here we are, Spring 2016.
And Senior Project is on!
The fact that one is a senior does not automatically guarantee that one may pursue a Senior Project. Mais non, mon ami. One must have a certain GPA, a limited number of absences, a spotless detention record. (Having earned detention is acceptable provided that said detention was actually fulfilled.)
And, even with the above criteria met, Senior Project is not a free-for-all six weeks of hooky. There are conditions and criteria. Each student must spend 40 hours a week (35, if they're still taking an AP class) at an approved internship under the supervision of an approved supervisor. He or she must secure a faculty mentor and check in with them on a regular basis. Participants have to keep a journal and then make a 5 or 10-minute presentation when the entire experience is over.
(After hearing all this at a Senior Project parents' meeting, I asked my daughter if it might not be easier to just stay and finish her courses. She looked at me like I had two heads and came from the planet Zot. It's a look she's quite good at; she's had years of practice.)
The paperwork is due this week. Another thing my daughter is very very good at is procrastination. (Of course, she has competition there. Every mom I know boasts the same of her daughter or son.) So, I have no doubt that all of her forms will be turned in on time. Just barely.
Stay tuned. Coming up next: Senior Project, Part 2 "Getting The Internship."
If you've enjoyed this post, I invite you to order the book Lovin' the Alien here.
