School’s out, woot!

(And yes, I know that y’all Canucks still have a few more weeks of school and are looking at us enviously. But while I’m not necessarily saying that more days in the classroom equals a better education, I will say that there’s probably a reason why Canadian universities take Canadian high school marks at face value while my kids will have to write SATs to prove that those As are for more than just showing up….)

HA! Listen to me counting my As before they’re hatched. Actually (shhh, don’t tell The Husband) I don’t even care what their marks are this year. This one’s a freebie as far as I’m concerned. I was way more worried about them fitting in and feeling welcome. Plus when you come into an entirely different school system, who knows where you are in the curriculum? Your peers might have taken the quadratic equation back in fifth grade and you were scheduled to get it in ninth and now you look like a loser because you don’t know your sine from your tan? Not in my (grade)book.

Nonetheless, both kids have done well. The Girl put me firmly into The Twilight Zone the other day when she asked whether a friend could come over because the friend needed her help with Algebra. (You may remember that this is The Girl’s third try at Algebra because the previous two attempts were teeth-gnashing failures.) When I faintly reached for my smelling salts to recover from the shock, she said “oh, well, now I know how to do it and this is my favourite stuff – it’s easy for me.”

And then yesterday she and some friends went downtown to hang out and celebrate the end of school (lol – they hung out at the bookstore – my kinda friends) and came back to our house for a bit. Is there anything better to warm mama heart cockles like hearing three girls giggling while trying on wigs and drawing in front of the TV while watching Shrek: The Musical? (Spoiler: no.)

I’m honestly humbled by how these kiddos have just taken this whole move in stride. And I’m starting to be grateful we made the move (as opposed to just resigned/hoping for the best). This town, these schools, this life we’re building – it suits them. When we were playing the “if Dad dies, where do you want to live?” game (what? you don’t play this game?), both kids without hesitation answered “here.”

And that, my friends, is worth celebrating. Better late than never:

As an apple fritter connoisseur, I can confirm that these are definite contenders. The glaze ratio is on point. The crusty, crumbly outside is a bit overwhelmed by the yeastiness of the inside, but it’s definitely better than VooDoo. Also – this shop is a cute local family business AND their kitchen is peanut free – she vehemently said, “Nada! No nuts here!” when I asked. So I suspect we’ll be back!

(But not anytime soon. I limited The Boy to two massive ones and then forced him to eat some scrambled eggs to try to rescue his poor pancreas, but pretty sure we’ll all be in sugar comas before lunch…. #justsummervacationthings, amirite?)