It's those DESKS....

Tonight is the last Back to School Open House I will ever attend. I have gone to one of these colossal wastes of time every year since September of 1986.

It's bittersweet, I suppose.

The bitter part is that it means my baby is just about finished with this phase of his life, and the world will, in a few short months, be his oyster.

This son, the one his father and I refer to as our Exclamation Point, added something to our life that I could never have imagined. Everything about our firstborn was easy (well, for about 19 years anyway). After a year of suffering the colic from hell, he settled in and every milestone was effortless from weaning to potty training to handing him the keys to the car.

But this one? Lordmercy. He started off easy -- slept like a log early -- but that was about the only thing that wasn't a struggle. I thought I'd never wean him. He was given to temper tantrums that left the entire family exhausted. It took him years to get on track with school. Potty training was a trip -- I declare he resisted just to be contrary, to the point where our pediatrician finally gave us this sage piece of advice: If he ain't trained by the night of his first date, give me a holler.

But he's also made us laugh a lot. There was one day -- when he was about three -- when he took it in his head to take a very large bolt of twine into the backyard. I thought he was napping, so I decided to take a nap, too.

When I awoke, he was standing next to me with a grin on his face, giggling and pointing at the back yard.

He had taken that bolt of twine, looped it from the fences on either side of the yard, and then walked back and forth and up and down with it, essentially creating a spider web effect across the entire area.

He took a test once, for placement in a school, and although he didn't make the cut, the tester showed me something interesting: when asked to circle the pair of candles, he'd instead taken his pencil and carefully CREATED a pair from two other sets. She had to mark it wrong, but she thought it showed great creativity. I thought it showed a greater understanding of the whole notion of a "set" myself, but there's no arguing with standardized tests.

He's the school mascot this year -- he dresses up in the uniform of a knight and cavorts on the sidelines with the cheerleaders. His classmates think he's a trip -- and so do I. The teachers at school love him, wish he'd apply himself more, and generally think he's going to be successful at whatever captures his heart and mind one of these days.

So do I, mainly because he has never learned not to be amazed by little things, and has yet to lose his sense of wonder.

Yes, one last night to listen to teachers drone on about their grading systems, how available they are to help when students need a little personal attention, and get the pitch to buy lots and lots of wrapping paper for the first fundraiser of the year. I can hardly wait.

And I can hardly wait to see where this boy goes in his life, too.