I kissed my middle child goodbye this morning as he left for the first day of his senior year of high school. I was particularly proud of myself because he headed out the door with a homemade fruit smoothie that had “Mommy loves you and wants you to have an awesome senior year” mentally written all over it.

Such a strange feeling. Three years ago my first child left for his senior year. Now it’s the middle child’s turn. I suppose it should not be that big a deal because he is the middle child; and as middle children learn, they are neither the first nor the last to do much of anything.

But, he is our outlier. He is the one who chose the giant public school for high school over the small private one that his brother and sister chose. He is the one who has never seen a microphone or a crowd that he is not magnetized by. He is the one who is not embarrassed to hug me in public. He is the one who wants to go to film school instead of medical school. He is the one who crawled into my lap last night. Well, half of him crawled into my lap. We discussed how neither one of us could sleep at 10:30 because our clocks are still set for summer. We watched a few videos together and discussed movies until we finally decided we better go to bed around 11.

He is 18 and excited to be a senior with all of the perks, privileges, firsts, lasts, and responsibilities the year will entail from voting this November to singing the National Anthem with 3 other senior choir members at the football scrimmage tonight. He also has a few more things to learn.

Last night I asked him to take some sheets upstairs and put them on his college brother’s bed. His eyes bugged out and he said “put them on the bed?”

I replied, “Just lay them on the bed. He did not need them at school. I don’t mean to make the bed.”

“Whew, I thought you wanted me to put them on the mattress and I don’t know how to do that. It’s a good thing you are coming to college with me next year.”

“You want me to come to college with you?” (Because I thought you would never ask….)

“Not stay there, just make my bed when you drop me off.”

“You do know you will need to take the sheets off and wash them periodically and re-make the bed.”

He then declared that he was sure his brother never did that and he was not sure he would either. Awesomesauce. I guess I have a few life skills to teach him this year.

Happy senior year to my middle baby and to all the seniors and their mamas. Let’s make it a good one!