School Zone

I live in a particular zone of schools.   I'm sure there are designations done by the city for which school(s) I could go to if I was of school-age.   I haven't paid any attention to them other than what my neighbors have told me as it relates to their children.   There are a lot of choices now for things such as year-round, magnet, charter, etc.   When I was young, there was just one choice.

I still live in the same area, not because I'm boring I hope, but because I like it here.  I travelled all over for ten years and I think of this place as home and I like to come home here.   It's nice here.  I live five or six miles away from where I was raised.  I visit that house often because my parents still live there in the winters or when they come to visit from their mountains home.

I take my children to school and in so doing I get about a mile away from my childhood home.   I take them to a school that's in the same buildings that I went to school at forty-two years ago when I was a child.  It's a different school now, but it was a school all the way back then.

On the way there, we pass by my elementary school.   The school is on the same grounds, but the building is entirely new.   They built a new school on top of the field areas and then tore down the old school.   Just before we get to my elementary school we pass by a church that I went to for after school care after elementary classes were over.   There is still a playground in the same area, although it's been updated many times since I went there.

At my elementary school intersection we turn right and head towards my middle school.   It's much bigger now than it was when I was a child.   I'm not sure if any of the building remains from when I went there, but I know the athletic field is in the same spot.   The rest of the school, including the very nice school sign, is mostly nothing I recognize or remember.

As we head towards my children's school on the same street, we're heading in the direction of my college.   Right before we turn right into the school parking lot for drop-off I can see the college campus straight ahead.  

I drop my children off and prepare to head home, but if I were to turn left instead of right and head in the direction of downtown, three miles later I would be one turn away from my high school.

I live in the capital city of my state with over four-hundred-thousand residents, but in some ways the city seems very small to me.

The Big Boy Update:  At "Bring your parents to school" day yesterday I saw lots of interesting work my son has been doing.   He showed me multiple things, proud of how he could do each of them by himself.   He had lots of energy and sort of hop-skipped to the door of the classroom (which was open).  He looked at me and said, "this work is called 'going outside and running laps'".   I told him he could go ahead and he dashed off.   There were two staff outside and when I explained what he was doing they both laughed, understanding.    When he got back I told one of his teachers and she explained, "we let them run laps in the rain the other day because they had so much energy to burn."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was tired out from our school parade to the new building site today.   After a bath I was drying her hair on the counter and she fell asleep right there as I did so.   We relocated her to the bed, naked, and let her sleep until dinnertime.