From Joe Time to Joe on the Hill

Today is the day childhood officially ended for Joe.  I'm nostalgic and a little sad, for sure.  

I helped him tie his maroon J.Crew tie in front of the mirror in our bathroom.  It's a little long but it will work.  He put on a navy jacket and just like that, Joe was wearing a coat and tie for the first time in his life.  If that doesn't signal the end of childhood, I don't know what does.  The boy who doesn't own a pair of blue jeans put on a coat and tie today.

Joe played Avett Brothers, It's the Beaches, on Alexa, and sat down on one of the barstools in the kitchen to catch his breath.  I wonder what he was thinking in that quiet, contemplative moment.  Was her nervous?  Excited?  A little of both, probably.  

I wonder if he realizes he's at the beginning of something.  A new stage in his life.  One that will fly by, although it won't seem like it at times, particularly when he's doing homework and studying for tests nights after night.  The grind is coming but good times, too.  Plenty of good times and memories to be made.

The front doorbell rang and when I went to the door, there was Henry, Joe's big brother.  In a longstanding tradition at MBA, he was at our house to drive Joe to registration, his first official day of school at MBA.  

It was a moment I'll remember, to be sure, to see Henry, a confident, poised senior in a golf shirt a shorts, standing next to Joe, awkwardly shifting from one foot to the other, wearing a coat and tie.  

The awkwardness at dressing up will go away, of course.  JP throws on a coat and tie for Honor's Council meetings multiple times a week to the point that it's like putting on shorts and a t-shirt.  That's part of the point, I guess.  To teach young men to dress and act like gentleman.  

Gentleman.  Scholar.  Athlete.

I hope Joe loves MBA as much as JP does and I hope his experience there is similarly rewarding.  I have to remind myself, regularly, that Joe is not JP.  His path at MBA, and in life, is going be different from JP's path, and I know that.  Jude and I have been very intentional about reminding Joe that his experience at MBA will be his own.  We expect him to have the same work ethic as JP but we don't expect the same results.  

Only yesterday, or so it seems, Joe and I had "Joe Time" every morning.  After Jude took JP to University School, Joe and I had about an hour together every morning.  Sometimes, we watched Daniel Tiger on PBS.  Other times, we went to Bongo Java for "second breakfast."  Most of the time, though, we went to Belmont and played on campus.  We played football in the atrium of the Curb Center, while students smiled at laughed as they walked by us, Joe chasing me into our makeshift end zone.  Those days were the best.

Joe Time.

After we hung out together, I dropped him off at Children's House, a oasis in our family's life.  It was a simple, beautiful time in our lives.  

I know I'll write more about Joe's transition to MBA in the weeks and months to come.  But for today, he's there.  On the Hill.  The beginning.