T-Minus Six Weeks and Two Days

Most mothers will tell you that pregnancy is about a month too long.  In fact, given the right opportunity, many moms will quickly point out that human gestation is NOT, in fact, 9 months, but rather 10.  Doctors count pregnancy as a 40-week endeavor, and that is NOT 9 months no matter how you slice it up.  Yeah, I know they're counting from a different start date, and I know that most months are slightly longer than 4 weeks; however, when you're carrying an extra 25-50 pounds or more for every second of every minute of every day of that 40 weeks, you don't "round down".

And that last month ticks by slower than a dial-up  modem.

I think that school children will start to feel that way some time over the next few weeks.  Right now they're running on spring break adrenaline, but that feeling of "Are we there yet?" will be kicking in soon.

That is, unless they are high school seniors, in which case they started feeling that anxiety on the first day of school and they are discovering now just how loooonnnnng nine months really is.  My oldest son is a senior this year.  He was homeschooled almost entirely up until 9th grade.  He's quite bright (understatement) and I'm glad that he had the advantage of being able to "learn ahead" all those years.  Fast forward to today:  His course load consists of four AP classes and three bands, so essentially all he has to do is pass those AP tests and he's finished.  He would love nothing more than to go ahead and sit for the exams and stop all of this nonsense of getting up at 6:30, listening to announcements, taking attendance, eating school lunch, stopping by lockers and racing the bell.

He has an impeccable transcript.  His class rank is 3rd (of about 374 students).  He was offered a very nice scholarship to Georgia Tech which he has declined in favor of a Presidential Scholarship to Georgia State University.  For the past four years his focus has been to be the best of the best, make the best grades possible, earn every award possible, participate in as many community outreach activities as possible, take on as many leadership roles as possible, to make sure that his college application stands out above all the other tens of thousands of them, and to earn enough scholarships to pay for his own college education.

So, now what? His goal has been achieved, his dream realized, his hard work and dedication has paid off, and he is entirely ready to claim his reward and begin his college journey fully funded - yet he is stuck in high school for six more weeks.  And two days.

It again reminds me of that 36th week of pregnancy about which time a mother learns that in most cases her baby is fully developed and will simply sit back and "grow" for the next four weeks.  By that time most of us are wondering how it will even have ROOM to grow for four more weeks - but we soon find out how stretchy we are.  We know that most likely our baby could be born healthy at any moment, and then we endure the longest four weeks of our lifetime.

Each morning as I watch my senior son begrudgingly head out the door I smile and shake my head.  I don't know how he'll make it six more weeks and two days, but he will.  Maybe he'll even enjoy some of that time.  Maybe he'll even "grow" a little.

I don't know how to help him through it, but I do know that if I hear him complain about it one more time I'll have to resort to sharing this pregnancy comparison with him ... and then I'll remind him that he was born three days late.