It went past me in a flash. A long, yellow flash that rumbled deep as it rolled down the gravel road; the color of caution a carriage to something new.
They had fat backpacks, fatter lunches, fresh haircuts. They had smiles wide and a glint in their eyes that told of excitement and anticipation, with a tiny bit of nervousness pressed in the middle.
These were our boys, two of them, taking this yellow ride.
In all the moments - from when they learned to sit, crawl, and walk, to when they sat on my lap and read their first words - in all the moments, they learned. From math equations in their thermals, to fall days in the pages of the river book. From silly words whacked across the paper, to the thousand word story. From memorization of math facts to the recitation of The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. From cribbage with the town's grandparents, to class trips with the local school. From geography, to art, to Latin, to Algebra, from grammar to history, from science to computers, they've come through learning moments, through days, through pages, all of it growing with them, each year broadening, widening, becoming an ever-expanding circle in their education experience.
This year, they grew more, the circle did, too, and looped around the yellow bus. With it comes a natural inclusion of opportunities that fall in sync with this stage of us, one benefit among many for our boys, our family, and our lifestyle. We've long held the opinion that all the world is a classroom of diverse architecture for our children. In that classroom are many teachers (learning fascilitators, I like to call them - some are parents of the child/student, some are not), people with amazing gifts who are ready to inspire and ignite. At the end of the road down which the yellow bus goes, are some of them.
So, this expansion and inclusion is here, part of us now. Part of our mornings, our evenings, and our days. So much is the same; so much is different. We're getting the hang of it - the new footholds, the handclasps, the ins & outs. But, mostly, when I look up at the bus winding down the road, I feel how exciting it is - our family growing and learning, together, in another season of life.
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