Boarding school 3, Move-in

Saturday dawned. We got up, ate, and decided to get an early start. The schedule said we could start moving in at 10:00am, but that the Student Store opened at 9:00 for ordering uniforms. We decided to get there at 9:00. We arrived a little before, coming up the back way (as all new boarders were to do), and found a locked gate. Too soon? Maybe. About the time we decided to back our way down the access road, though, it swung open by itself. So we drove up, meandered a bit, and found a place to park. We figured our next stop was the Store, but no -- we met someone who told us we could go right on ahead and move Son 1 in. He signed in on a roster, got his room assignment and a key, and away we went.

The building where he lives was standing back when I attended Hogwarts (in the early Bronze Age), but it must have been refurbished. The light fixtures are all new, and there are ethernet ports in every room along with the electrical sockets. Fortunately Son 1 packed light. We unloaded the car, then I drove it down the hill to a longer-term parking space while the boys and Wife moved in all his stuff. When I got back, it was halfway done. Wife tried several times to put some of his stuff away for him, but I insisted that she let him do it so he'd know where everything was. Besides, there wasn't much.

In the process, we met briefly the dorm prefect, and also spent some time talking with the Senior in charge of the Orientation Group to which Son 1 was assigned. Turns out this latter fellow (named Chris) was also one of the football players, so he and Son 1 knew each other somewhat. They chatted about the football practices and about orientation, and then Chris said he had to go check up on some other kids but he'd be back.

Our next step was to walk down the hill towards the Student Store. When we got there, we found racks of jackets and slacks in different sizes. Here I really let Wife take over: there was no question of her going crazy with shopping, because the list of things to buy was absolutely specified and the only question was what size to order. It took her some time to coax Son 1 into a couple of different sizes of jacket and a couple different sizes of trousers before she could say definitely what size he needed, but then we just ordered the actual uniform online. There were parents there to help us, and laptops plugged in at a desk out in the open, all connected to the ordering site of the one company that provides the uniforms. Wife spent some time talking with one of the other mothers (I don't know about what, because I wandered in the other direction), and then we headed over to the dining hall for lunch.

Lunch was served buffet style, and for the most part was institutional "cheap and cheerful.: fried chicken, macaroni salad, bean salad, fresh fruit, and cookies. The four of us ate together, although Son 1 ate hardly anything. He said first that he wasn't hungry, and then that he didn't like fried chicken. (He did, however, make a bee-line for the table of cookies, once he saw it.) I couldn't help thinking, a little uncharitably, that the exact same reaction to one of my dinners would have inspired Wife to lecture me about how I was cruelly forcing the children into starvation by cooking food that "nobody would eat"; but when it was Hogwarts offering greasy, salty fried chicken she uttered not a peep. I know, that's a really petty and uncharitable thought. Sorry.

After lunch we split up. New students had to go to orientation activities on this lawn over here, while parents (and Son 2) went to welcoming speeches in the auditorium over there. We heard from the outgoing Head of School (who is being kept on in some public relations capacity), the incoming Head of School, the president of the PTA-equivalent organization, and the deans. They spoke on a variety of subjects. One talk was by the new Head of School, about how easy it is to keep in touch 24x7 these days, and why it is a bad idea. He urged us not to be the kind of parent who has to be obsessively in touch with our kids all the time. When he said that, Son 2 -- who was with us at the time -- turned and stared intently at Wife with deeply accusatory eyes. The other speakers all told us, in varying ways, what a fine choice we had made in sending our offspring to Hogwarts, and how well they were going to be nurtured and challenged and educated, and what amazing dedicated faculty there were here to work with them. I realize as I re-read this that I sound sarcastic, but I don't mean to. If you allow for the fact that reality is never as pretty as talk, nonetheless I am willing to believe that the things we were told are all fair enough. And even Wife -- for whom nothing is ever good enough -- said at the end that she was comfortable this school and these people were the right choice and would be good for Son 1.

We met briefly with Son 1's adviser -- mostly to get to know who he is. We were told we'd doubtless hear a lot from him in the weeks and months to come. He shook our hands, welcomed us, asked if we had any questions for him (at that point we didn't) ... and then introduced himself to the next boy's parents.

The next stop was the "New Parent Tea" over at the Admissions Office (which used to be the house of the school's founder). This was one of the events that had worried me a bit, lest Wife start button-holing someone and talking endlessly about ... well, whatever it might be. (The meeting with Son 1's adviser was another such occasion, and I was grateful it lasted so briefly.) But I needn't have worried. Wife got herself a glass of iced tea and a plate of hors d'oeuvres, and then sat down with Son 2 at an empty table. I mingled for a bit, chatting pleasantly with a number of new parents, and then joined them. And really, after about a half an hour or so, Wife and Son 2 were ready to leave. There was nothing more on the agenda, so that was fine with me. We took off -- not even seeing Son 1 to let him know we were going (but he was meanwhile following the new student agenda) -- and went back to my parents' house.

More irritation from my father because he had started dinner way too early, and so it was all done the minute we set foot inside. After our hors d'oeuvres, though, we really couldn't eat for a couple of hours. Not a tragedy in the grand scheme of things, but it contributed to his overall irritability that evening.

In fact, my father had been irritable ever since I got there the afternoon before. He was touchy and snappish, and seemed to start making his evening cocktails in the middle of the afternoon. So when he asked me for our Sunday schedule, I proposed getting the hell out of there as soon as possible so we could stop annoying him. This startled him. But then he explained that it had been a trying week. Partly my mother was -- is -- still recovering from a case of shingles, which meant that she had less energy and more pain than usual. Partly his whole sleep schedule had been seriously disoriented by getting up at 5:00 am every morning to drive Son 1 to football -- and especially ever since I explained to both him and Wife (Friday afternoon, as I described in that installment) that this venture had never been "necessary" he was pretty put out. Partly he found Son 1's constant levels of energy and motion -- all week long -- exhausting. And partly -- largely, I think -- he felt worn down by Wife's constant negativism. All week long, nothing had ever been right. Nothing was ever good enough. She complained about the food and about the school (Hogwarts? I guess) and about Son 1 and about me and about ... everything under the sun, apparently. No surprise really, because she does that all the time everywhere else, too. And it was just very, very draining, exhausting, irritating. One afternoon he had come back to the bedroom to find my mother lying on the bed in tears because it was all too much. Her pain was part of it, of course; and she had just gotten a panicked phone call from some client for whom the world was falling apart and who wanted her to fix it all. But also it had just been a very trying week. My dad said that if anything, he had been looking forward to the arrival of Son 2 and me because our respective cheerfulnesses would be a ray of light in all this gloom. And later that evening he actually apologized to everybody in the family for being so grumpy.

Saturday was another early night for all of us -- although it was a good bit quieter because of course Son 1 wasn't there. But we were still tired enough to turn in early.

Son 2 stayed with my folks Sunday morning, while Wife and I went back to Hogwarts. We had a couple things that Son 1 was missing, and there were some more talks. Most notable was a talk by a woman summarizing (or pitching) her book 7 Things Your Teenager Won't Tell You (and how to talk about them anyway). The gist of her talk was that many of the highly distinctive things people have noticed about how teenagers communicate are actually consequences of how their brains are developing ... this we have learned as we learn more about the biology if the brain in general. As a result, she went on, it's not very effective to expect teenagers to suddenly start acting and thinking exactly like we do, because in some cases they physically can't; so it actually works better to mold our expectations to what they can do, instead of demanding the reverse. What a concept.

It wasn't till after the talks that we connected with Son 1 for a few minutes -- long enough to take the extra items to his room, and then he was due elsewhere for another 15 minutes. After that we had lunch together -- sandwiches, as well as more bean salad, fruit, cookies -- and Son 1 took off. He explained he had more orientation events to get to. Actually he had a good half hour before the next event, but he was in a rush anyway. Wife insisted on a hug and got a halfway, one-arm hug. I shook his hand, and he vanished into a swirl of other kids. And that is the last we have seen of him up till now. He called briefly a couple days later (to ask me to mail him a book). He had a wonderful time on the Freshman Class backpacking trip, in the week before classes started. And he called last weekend (and spent most of his time talking with Son 2). Meanwhile it has been a lot quieter back home without him, and his cat spent a lot of time wandering around puzzled and meowing.