Just Signed My Baby Up For High School

Not sure why this is bothering me so much.  It's not like I didn't know it was coming, after all.  He's halfway through eighth grade.  The school has been talking about it since November.  He's been in a pre-tryout training program for freshman soccer run by the HS coach for months already, too.

Something about the paperwork part is getting to me.  Looking at the courses online.  Figuring out what to sign up for and how.  Creating online accounts at the school, ours and his.  His middle school is tiny.  The high school, massive.  800 kids per grade, plus or minus.  Going to be a huge change for him.

His online course registration window opened this morning.  When I came downstairs, Thing One and Himself were at the computer getting his selections in.  Besides being a big school, its a good one.  An almost paralyzing variety of course options.  Should he take all honors courses?  Just a few to focus?  Which electives?  Everyone has an opinion but it all boils down to knowing your kid.

We decided to sign him up for a few honors courses (math, science, social studies) and start with regular level for the others (health, language arts, Spanish.)  You have to choose and rank six electives; they will give you four.  To absolutely nobody's surprise, his first choice was Introduction to Geography.  (Did I tell you that he won the middle school Geography Bee *again*? Third year in a row: now waiting to hear if he made it to the state competition for a third time as well.)  Invention and Innovation.  Music Theory and Composition.  Intro to HTML and Web Design.  Art 1.  Keyboarding and Piano.

The kid is 13, will turn 14 in July.  He's only an inch or so shorter than my 5'10" now, with floppy teen hair, difficult adolescent skin and the all-pervading smell of Axe body spray following him like a cloud.  Sure doesn't look like anybody's baby anymore.  And yet, he parked himself in the middle of my kitchen the other day after school while I was running around like a crazy woman and refused to move until I gave him a hug.  He still kisses me goodbye in the morning at the bus stop (in front of the bus!!) and gives me grief if I don't look in on him on my way to bed at night.  He still voluntarily talks to me too...what's going on at school or at soccer or with the girls.  I'm sure that at some point we will lose some of that closeness, and I think that's what is really bothering me about this whole transition.

Not much I can do about it and I know everyone goes through it.  I'll deal just like everyone else does, but thinking about him growing up makes me sad.