I know I have probably said this before, but I got quite a bit older yesterday.
There's little to do while you proctor the ACT. I mean, walking around too much freaks the kids out and reading would get me too absorbed to notice any possible exam subterfuge, so I knitted a bit and read the test materials over and over and over.
The list of students in my room listed birthdates. I am already used to the fact that these children who are Junior and Seniors and about to be unleashed upon the world were born as I graduated High School. Somehow, it doesn't bother me. I know we have none of the same cultural touchstones, and we move on. But yesterday, I tested a seventh grader. One of those brainiacs doing the Duke University Talent Search. He was adorable and from what I can see of just bubbling answers, he was bubbling in there with the best of them. Yes, he's cute, but look at his birth year...
1993. Late 1993. Nearly as old as the oldest child of my good friend.
I left the test shaken, old. I wanted to dial The Crib Chick right away and tell her that I just gave the test to someone the age of her eldest daughter!! The adorable baby that I remember visiting for the first time and staring, staring at her, her every move fascinating, fascinating to me because my friend made this!! That thing, created by my friend in her responsible adulthood, could have taken the ACT this weekend!!!
So I call, and her oldest son answers the phone. He sounds old too. He tells me his mom is unavailable. Nevermind that this kid has had this sophisticated a vocabulary since he was two or something. Right now, his use of that word makes me old.
No lesson learned, no ending here, soon the realization will wear off and I will return to my state of whimsical adulthood. For now, I just had to get that out.
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You don't want me to tell you about the fact that the young man with the mature vocabulary has an admirer in the neighborhood now. (Picture me doing the Robert de Niro-in-Meet-the-Parents move; pointing to my eyes and then said girl, mouthing "I'm WATCHING you...")
It happens too fast. My Dad often tells me that I'm stuck, in his mind, at about twelve years old.
Some days, I feel that I'm stuck in *my own mind* at about twelve. How can I possible have kids that old?
P.S. I'd like to say that a benefit of having older kids is that they can screen your calls for you, but apparantly, all they can do is get rid of the *fun* callers. Telemarketers? Heck, they'd probably hunt me down and hand me the phone whilst on the toilet, or in the shower. Kids. Gotta love 'em.
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