Shhh! I’ve Got a Secret!

Nathan has cousins that he likes and gets along with really well. One of those is Ella, my sister Patti’s youngest daughter. Nathan and Ella have similar interests (piano, singing, theater, etc.) and although Ella is really shy and Nathan is really not, they enjoy each other’s company and feel comfortable enough with each other to let their figurative hair down.  (For a visual representation of their relationship, check out the pictures of the two of them at the baseball game on July 24. 😉)

Over the past several years, Ella has been troubled by bullies at school. It has made for a very unhappy and anxious girl and a very unhappy and anxious mom. As she and my sis discussed high school (Ella is one year younger than Nathan), they knew Ella could not attend the school in whose boundaries they live. Permits were submitted and approved, and plans were made for her to attend a different high school, the same one that my nephew Corbin (Seth’s youngest son who is the same age as Nathan) attends. But a couple of months ago, Ella had a very clear impression that she was headed to the wrong school. She needed to be at our high school, the brand new one that Nathan would be attending. So permits were revoked, new permits were submitted and approved and new plans were made.

Through all of this, Ella opted to keep a strict policy of secrecy. She didn’t want Nathan to know because she wanted to surprise him on the first day of school. Patti and I spent the summer sharing info and coordinating visits to the school in order to keep Ella’s secret. Other family members knew (Kevin and Daniel at my house), but they all managed to keep everything on the down low. Even the choir director at the high school (who grew up down the street from me and is one of Patti’s best friends) knew.

Today was the big reveal, and I kept my phone handy knowing at some point there would be a text barrage. And there was. At a quarter past seven this morning, I got a selfie of my son and my niece on their first day at their brand-new school. Nathan was definitely surprised. And although he thought keeping the secret was “not cool” on our part, I assured him that it most definitely was cool (for the rest of us, at least) and it didn’t take long for him to forget about being upset and just be happy about the whole thing.

The new school does not have over 3500 kids like our high school last year and does have a current enrollment of only 1500. It does not have the wall to wall bodies that made Nathan feel more than a bit anxious on his first day of school last year and it does have enough room in the halls, commons and lunchroom to accommodate all the students. It does not have the two-faced, emotionally manipulative choir teacher Nathan had last year and does have a choir teacher that loves the kids and his job so much that he sent a message to the madrigal group chat one period before their first official class period telling them how ridiculously excited he was for them to arrive. It has none of the bullies that Ella dealt with and one cousin who will stand up for her in any situation. And to get things off to a great start, the principal, who wants to make it a great year for all the kids in their brand new school, bought a balloon for every one of them so they could do a big school spirit balloon release at the end of the day.

Nathan’s largest class is madrigals with a head count of 32. His smallest is AP Calculus with only 10 students. The smaller class sizes are going to be fantastic. Madrigals is going to be fantastic. And having four classes with one of his favorite cousins is going to be more than fantastic. Here’s fingers crossed to a school year that is fantastic all the way around.