Reflections of a Senior Year, by a Mother of a Senior

And what a year it has been! Actually it has been four years of my sons high school career that has been filled with fun (for him), frustrations (for us), laughter, tears, sweat, bad grades, good grades, and weekly letters from the principal. Who ever could have guessed that this little angel:


Would end up looking like this!:



The mo-hawk is something that he has always wanted to do and I would never pay to have it done. I'm just old fashioned and I don't like them, plain and simple. I don't care how nice of a person you are a mo-hawk makes you look like a rebel (that's my opinion and I'm sticking with it!) This kid knows how to push buttons though and is another reason he did it. He wanted to do something outrageous for graduation and if this is all he came up with then I am counting my blessings! I just hope this is all he is doing! Graduation is Sunday (tomorrow) so we will find out then. You better believe I will be checking to make sure he is wearing clothes under that gown before we leave the house and before he makes the walk! Yes, he has already hinted that he may not be wearing pants. But I digress, I'm sure you are all waiting with baited breath for more history of my amazing son and his never ending ability to constantly entertain, amaze, and basically keep us guessing as to what he could possibly do next!
I think I will start out with his confirmation into our church. Our church confirms kids as they are about to leave 8th grade before entering High School. Each child goes through 5 years of catechism beginning in the third grade with the hopes that they will learn and digest the way of the Lord and know what their responsibilities are not only to the church but to themselves and others. No child is confirmed unless the pastor is certain that they know what they are doing. Two days before confirmation, Matt was in his room doing what ever he was supposed to be doing or so I thought....all of a sudden I hear this blood curdling scream followed by another from my daughter! Actually I figured they were fighting and he did something to her, but no sooner had I thought this then she comes running down the stairs screaming that Matt stabbed himself! What?! What do you mean? Is he all right? Oh my God How? I'm saying, thinking, screaming as I run up the stairs. OMG....yes there is blood running down his leg...how did this happen...what were you doing....omg get down stairs. I don't remember getting him down stairs, I just remember grabbing towels, applying pressure, shoving him in the car with hubby dad and watching them race to the nearest hospital. With me to follow soon. Daughter was crying and freaking out as I was trying to get out of her exactly what happened. You cannot believe what my thoughts were and neither could I, but I had to ask the unaskable and that was did you stab your brother?! Oh how I didn't want to ask that as no one thinks one of their children could ever do that to a sibling, worse yet was I didn't want to hear the answer if it was yes. Fortunately, the answer was no and then how could you even think I would do something like that? (never mind the fact that these two were at the time at the age where all I heard was how much they hated each other one minute and were best friends the next!) Well it turns out that the oldest son had placed a kind of flip knife on his dresser and Matt picked it up to look at it, instead of putting it back on the dresser he tossed it on his bed to look at later. Well the lock was broken on it and it flipped open, unbeknown-st to Matt because he was a thirteen year old scatter brain! A few minutes later he decides to jump belly first onto the bed...you guessed it the knife went right into his thigh, two inches! Just missing that wonderful femoral artery(I think that's what it's called.....the one that you can bleed out and die in just a couple of minutes). He ended up with a drain tube in for 24 hours and a couple of stitches and hobbling around on crutches for a week. He did make it through confirmation, here's a picture of him being confirmed by the pastor. Does this answer the question of God's protection?



Now on to high school. His freshman year was pretty uneventful except for a few bouts with bad grades which he was always able to bring up at the last second. He has always scored high on proficiency tests, and the Ohio Graduation Tests so we really didn't worry too much, we knew he was capable and learning. We also knew that Matt was going to be the one child that tested us as parents too. We live in a farming community, the high school is literally surrounded by corn fields in the country between two or three little towns with populations of about 500. So we are talking about a school filled with kids who farm, most are avid hunters (the school excuses them all on the first day of deer season if they bring in their hunting license), and most of them are avid fisher men too. Before any of them can get a hunting license they have to take a hunters course and pass it, this is state law here. It's nice that they all know gun safety and most are very responsible. We really have never had any problems in this area. Anyway no related story here just thought some back ground information would be interesting! LOL
Sophomore year for him wasn't too bad either, except that we got a new principal and a few problems arose. He seemed to single Matt out for different things but was never able to prove that he was involved in anything he accused Matt of and even told Matt once that he would find a way to prove that he was involved. I can't even remember exactly what he thought Matt did, but Matt was only questioned because he sat next to the kid in a class. Matt said he wasn't friends with the kid and really didn't like the kid because he was always getting into trouble anyway and he just basically steered away from those types. All of Matt's friends are farmers and this kid was not. That didn't stop the principal though and he started finding things wrong with the way Matt dressed, still couldn't get him on anything but he sure tried! This only made Matt dislike the man more and more. By the end of the year Matt hated this man and one of his teachers (who goes to church with us) told me to watch and be on top of things because this principal seemed to have Matt targeted along with a few others.
Junior year and all hell breaks loose! TO BE CONTINUED (hopefully tomorrow) I gotta get some stuff done and this is taking on a life of its own! Stay tuned for more fun and adventures!
Wishing you all a happy day!