SCHOOL'S...OUT...FOR...SUM-MER!

Children fold time back on itself. My oldest son just "graduated" from kindergarten, and the three months of vacation stretches out before us like the promised land or purgatory, depending on the time of day and point of view. I know that this summer will be challenging in many ways, but I still feel the excitement of summer as seen through my newly-liberated child's eyes. Thank goodness for the pool, for naps, for window air conditioners. For the chance to live childhood again, with more power and less sleep.

School is behind us but also already looming in front of us. I thought I had put the school decision behind me when I signed big boy up for his current school last March, but my commitment to that decision is a weak reed indeed. Just as I met the new principal and started feeling really excited about next year, I learned of a new charter school. It's a language immersion school - kids choose Mandarin, Russian, or French - and it's just around the corner. Wouldn't it be amazing to grow up bilingual? I've been reading studies of children from immersion schools, and they tend to do better in all subjects, not just language. If I don't send the kids there, am I depriving them of a really unique opportunity? If I do, am I scarring big boy by switching him from a school where he's already comfortable? Think they'd just let ME matriculate, as a kindergartener, so I can learn Mandarin myself?

I need to put the littles to bed. Our bedtime creeps later with the setting of the sun. If we lived in northern Alaska, the poor kids would be reduced to a 45 minute nap around midnight (but would sleep 23 hours a day in winter, now there's an idea...).