When I was growing up, the movies always made high school seem like the golden years, the happiest years a young person could have. Carefree, discovering love and making lasting friendships, all American Graffiti.

These days, high school is usually portrayed as a cesspool of the worst kind of human behaviour, where all that is evil thrives and is amplified, and you are either a bully or bullied. My son and husband have been watching the second season of 13 Reasons Why on Netflix, and don’t get me wrong – it is interesting and engrossing and has led to lots of interesting discussion around here. But between that, and Riverdale, and even things like Glee, the whole picture of high school life is pretty grim. The heroes are constantly getting stomped on, and the elites seem like all they know how to do is exploit power and take advantage of people. Where are the average people who are just trying to figure it all out? Where are my modern day Napoleon Dynamites and Freaks and Geeks?

Anyway, that is not the point of this post. My point here is that although I do not look back at high school with some kind of rosy glow, it was a pretty good time for me. I was on the outside of most of the usual drama and I was super active in clubs and activities, so I had a lot of fun and made some good friends and learned some great stuff. It was overall pretty positive, I’d say.

So now that my two older kids are in high school, I find myself getting wistful – not for the social stuff or the activities, but for the learning.

I remember a lot of memorization of facts kind of stuff, but the stuff they are doing now? It’s so cool!

(They might not quite feel the same way.)

Some of their teachers are really creative and smart and engaging. For example, in history class, my son had an assignment to take a real life, Canadian WWII soldier, read his file (available in the Canadian archives), and then “become” that guy for a week – know everything about him, write his diary entries, present a talk as if he were that soldier. So cool, am I right?

And in English class, he’s reading Lord of the Flies (ugh), but at least his teacher has tried to liven things up by grouping his class into “islands” where they will have to complete a variety of survival challenges as a group. They even got to name their island and then design a flag for it – FLAG DESIGN, I am swooning.

In Gal Smiley’s English class, they are reading Romeo and Juliet. They are reading the old English in parallel with the graphic novel, and then once they are done both they will be making a Spotify playlist to parallel every scene in the play. Which, seriously, SO COOL.

In Geography, she went on a nature hike to examine local rocks; in gym class they are taking self-defense and getting CPR training. In drama, the Captain had a day-long fake fighting seminar and in computer science he’s writing a video game for kids in grade 3 at a nearby school, incorporating their own artwork.

I mean, I liked high school, and I don’t remember it being anywhere near as fun and interesting as all this. Makes me want to throw a party for all their teachers, who are rocking it.

(Also perhaps said party will buy me the ability to sit in and audit all their classes because – SO COOL.)

The other day I was driving down a quiet neighbourhood street and a grey squirrel ran out in front of the van at the last moment.

I slammed on the brakes and managed to stop with about six feet to spare, but the squirrel was totally freaked out. He froze in an upright position, not moving at all, as if he could magically make himself invisible.

I wasn’t in any kind of rush, so I sat there too. I figured he’d eventually settle down after a few moments and run off, and I was afraid to try to pull around him because I envisioned that being the exact moment he pulled his crap together and moved, and then we’d meet up in a very unhappy manner.

So I waited, and he froze, and this went on for at least three or four minutes. I started to wonder if he was having a stroke or something.

Then, a black squirrel hopped out on the side of the road where the grey squirrel had been heading. He looked both ways (good boy!), determined there was no danger, then hopped merrily across the road, darting past the grey squirrel as if he really were invisible.

Oh, the poor grey squirrel. He snapped his head around, watching the black squirrel skip past, but continued to sit there in the middle of the road. The look on his face – one of complete confusion – was so funny. HOW did that black squirrel make it? Did he have super powers? Can he run at lightning speed?

Grey Squirrel just could not process the remarkable powers of Black Squirrel.

I took this as some kind of sign, and gently eased the van past Grey Squirrel, who was still sitting there frozen, with his head turned almost all the way backwards, seeking answers. For all I know, he sits there still.

It’s hard not to notice that I’m quite a Grey Squirrel myself. Frozen in place with indecision or fear, unable to move forward, even when I see progress coming easily to others.

Be the Black Squirrel, I thought to myself as I drove away. Some things that look like safety are really more dangerous than just moving forward and seeing what happens.

(Is it illegal to keep a pet squirrel? Because I feel like if I see Grey Squirrel again, I may have to adopt him, poor guy.)

Last night I was sitting on the couch flaking in front of the TV with the Captain, age 15 and a half.

Then, out of nowhere, he announced that he was in the mood for a little spaghetti.

And THEN, he got up and went over to the kitchen and proceeded to make himself some spaghetti.

This does not sound like a huge deal but I just about fell off the couch, and my mouth was hanging so far down I think my chin scraped the floor. It’s not amazing that he physically is capable of doing this – we have been training him to do some basic kitchen things, under duress, for a couple of years now. What was so amazing to me was the agency of it. The fact that he felt hunger, and then rather than just gazing about hopefully after declaring his hunger, expecting someone to do something about it, he decided that he, he himself!, would take action and make food happen.

ASTONISHING.

And! He even fried himself a hot dog on the side to put on top (we were watching Young Sheldon, so it was thematically appropriate). Which involved getting out a whole other pan! And using a secondary cooking technique!

AND! This was maybe an hour after we had just had dinner. The spaghetti and hot dog were a second dinner. I can’t even. This, from a guy who is fifteen and weighs, on a good day, if you weigh him after a really big meal, a scant 80 pounds.

So needless to say this was a pretty BIG DEAL as far as I am concerned. Lo, we have created A HUMAN BEING. Amazing!

Then, this morning I took all three kids to the dentist, and we have one with a cavity, a second one with a cavity, and a third one with THREE cavities.

You win some, you lose some, I guess.