Thoroughly Modern Millie

I'm sitting here outside Gregory Middle School at 11:18 at night. Jack is on the tech crew for the spring musical, and tonight, after the last show, the tech crew was responsible for dismantling the entire set. 

It was pretty fun to watch them all march each night as they built the set last month. A dozen sixth, seventh and eighth graders, mostly boys (but there were two girls!) filing in with their drill cases in hand, ready to work.

I couldn't believe that they truly were going to keep the kids this late tonight, but apparently, they are.  Jack is in his crowning glory, and I know he feels like a totally independent tween.  

It's been a great week to be Jack. He got selected to be one of a handful of sixth-graders to work on the 'Select Tech' team that ran the show behind the scenes (his job was 'Light Queue').  Then he got his COGAT results back and scored in the 99th percentile, which makes him eligible for the gifted program at school next year.  Finally, he got a coveted 'positive referral' at school for being a good leader in his FLEX (foreign language exploration) class today.  They were doing a paper folding craft and as Jack says, "Being an expert from 5 years of paper airplane and origami folding was pretty helpful!"

It's not easy, being Jack. Which is why wins like these mean so much. And why, even though the mother in me wanted to say "Absolutely not! There's no way you're staying until 11:30, young man!", the cheerleader in me kept my mouth shut and let him enjoy his moment.

I have a feeling this is the first of many to come.

Epilogue: The winning streak continued, and Jack won a first place and two third place trophies in a karate tournament this weekend!  I told him to soak up all the good feelings from the week and bring them back out to visit when he's having a not-so-great week some day in the future.  I'm not sure he heard me way up there on cloud nine, though.