Tomorrow, It's Official

Tomorrow, all of the local school kids start public school. The neighbors already started yesterday, at a charter or private school (I'm not sure which it is).

Suddenly it all feels so real, so rebelious, so subversive.

I'm not sending my son, who is of compulsory school age, to school.

The weird part of it, here in California, is that homeschooling is basically setting up your own personal private school. The thing is, the only official form to fill out is simply a notification to the state that you already opened your school. I don't have to ask anyone, I don't need to be approved, I just let them know that it already happened. The funny thing is, I can't do that until October 1st, when the website goes online again. (They turn it off every year, so people don't file at the "wrong" time. Weird.)

Anyway, it makes me feel like we're in some sort of weird truant limbo, even though we are not. We're just like every other private school in the area. Some have more students, some are religious, they turned school into a business, etc.. But they don't have any more official paperwork than I do.

It just feels so much more real when you imagine all of the other little kids going off the school with their backpacks and lunchboxes, their crying moms waving and smiling. And my kids are sleeping in, eating breakfast together, coloring castles with me in the kitchen, and playing happily together downstairs.

It feels so real to me, because they got so very used to doing their morning lessons, then running next door to invite the girls out to play. But now their friends aren't home. And I don't even know when they will get home -- yesterday we never even saw them. Maybe they went out for dinner after school? All my kids know is that suddenly their summer playmates are gone, and their afternoon is just a little sadder and more lonely. Luckily we have park day today!