After we got home from Cedar Point, the kids had a week and a half before school started. I didn’t manage to get June very many play dates and a lot of the time she was bouncing around the house bored, when she wasn’t spending too much time playing games or watching television on the computer. She and Beth went shopping for school supplies and when Beth would only buy half her composition books with fancy covers—as a compromise because the floral ones were more expensive than the ones with the traditional black and white speckled covers—she set to work decorating the rest of the books with blue and purple sparkly tape until none of the offensively plain covers showed.

June also weeded, helped me make dinner one night and made it by herself another night, took laundry off the line for me, earned some money feeding the neighbors’ cat while they were on vacation, and made a batch of cinnamon cookies. On the last Friday of summer vacation, she was so bored she started making drinks out of ingredients she found in the kitchen and making me taste them. The salted caramel drink was quite salty, but there was a sour drink that was more palatable. I can’t remember what she put in that one, but it involved lime juice and maybe chocolate syrup.

Noah pruned some bushes, mowed the lawn twice, vacuumed twice, read a book on patterns of civic participation in American politics and made a grid with the thesis of each chapter, evidence and an evaluation of the evidence. This was his last assignment of the summer and he finished it Friday morning.

Both kids had a lot of appointments the last week—doctor, dentist, orthodontist. According to the doctor, Noah shrank a half inch over the past year. We’d noticed his growth had slowed in the past year, after a steady three-year growth spurt, but I doubt he’s really shorter than he was when he was fourteen. Maybe he’s slumping more, or maybe he’s had a more recent haircut.

We did manage to do some things that were more fun than getting poked and prodded by medical professionals. The second to last weekend we went to the Montgomery County Fair. In the goat barn we serendipitously ran into Megan’s family and so the girls got to pet rabbits, brave the haunted house, and fly through the air on the swings together. I rode the swings, too, behind my kids, and Megan and her sister. Fiona had her arms up in the air most of the time. She looked so joyous it was infectious.

The last Thursday before school started I took the kids on a creek walk, a late summer tradition of ours. It was nice to see Noah splashing in the water and enjoying himself after working so hard on his civics the past week. We saw many fish and crawfish and raccoon prints in the mud, and spider webs spanning the creek. June even found a turtle shell. It would have been just about perfect if I hadn’t lost my footing in the creek, fallen, and hit my kneecap hard on a rock. Two days later when I still couldn’t bend my knee, Beth took me to urgent care to make sure the kneecap wasn’t broken. It wasn’t. After another two days of wearing an ace bandage, taking prescription strength ibuprofen for the swelling, and icing it a few times a day, it’s a little better.

There was an Open House at June’s school on Friday afternoon, so I took June to meet her teachers. Mrs. F, her math teacher, seemed friendly and enthusiastic and all of June’s friends are in this class. She was disappointed to find she only has one friend in her English/social studies class. We didn’t find out who was in her Spanish/science class because she has the same teacher she had last year, Señora Y, and she didn’t feel the need to trek out to the portables to see her, as she knows what to expect from her.

June did, however, take the opportunity to introduce herself to the new instrumental music teacher and to tell him the sad story of how her parents were making her choose between Girl Scouts and orchestra. She failed to mention she’s also in the running club and taking an acting class and private voice lessons this fall. He diplomatically said he hoped to see her in orchestra.

June slept over at Megan’s house on Friday night and stayed there until early Saturday afternoon because we were longer at the urgent care than we thought we’d be. After resting a little, June and I went to see Pete’s Dragon, and then all four of us went out to dinner in Silver Spring, as no one was interested in cooking.

Sunday morning Noah asked me if there was anything he had to do and I said we were going out for our traditional last-night-of-summer-break ice cream in the evening and that at some point before then I’d like to read some in The Two Towers. He seemed pleased with that answer. We read in the morning while Beth and June were grocery shopping. We’ve gotten to a very satisfying part of the book. We’d left off the day before in the middle of the chapter in which the Ents are introduced (because I needed to leave for the movie) so we finished that and read the next one, in which it’s revealed Gandalf didn’t die when he fell into the abyss in Moria in the previous book.

After lunch, Noah was pacing around, seemingly at loose ends, so I suggested he go play his drums and he said, “That’s a good idea” and he went to do it. I listened to the fast and complex rhythms emerging from the basement with admiration, as I often do, and I hoped that he’d be in band this year. (Last year he had a schedule conflict.)

Before dinner, I was filling out forms I got at the Open House at June’s school and consulting with her on her first day outfit, which caused her to comment later, “I don’t get Mommy. How does Mommy think? Not colorfully obviously.” She settled on the pink and blue dress Beth’s mom got her for high tea at the beach at the beginning of the summer.

Before we left for ice cream, the kids carried yard waste bags from the back yard to the front curb where they joined bags of weeds and overgrown vines from our side yard fence that Beth had pruned earlier in the day. Beth glanced at her work. “It’s not perfect, but it’s progress,” she said.

Noah wanted to know if she was talking about him and June. No, she said, she didn’t expect them to be perfect, but she expected them to always be trying to make progress, and doing their best.

“This year is going to be terrible,” Noah muttered.

“This year is going to be awesome!” June exclaimed.

Noah was referring to the fact that tenth grade in the Communications Arts Program (CAP) is supposed to be the most challenging year. I reminded him that everyone who’s been through the Humanities magnet at his middle school and CAP says the hardest year in middle school—seventh grade—is actually worse than tenth (relative to the students’ ability at the time, one presumes).

“You’ve got this,” I said.

On the way home, Noah glanced at his phone and noticed his Edline account (where assignments and grades are posted) had been re-activated so he checked his schedule to see if he was in band and he was. We all cheered and were happy for about thirty seconds and then Beth said, “Wait…Symphonic Band?” Symphonic Band is an audition-only band and he hadn’t auditioned. He’d requested the non-audition Concert Band, because he hates to audition. So it looked like there had been some kind of administrative snafu.

In the morning, Noah was ready on time. Beth took his picture at the gate and we watched as he walked off to the high school bus stop at seven a.m. An hour and twenty minutes later, and after much fussing over lunch preparations (she’s making her own lunch this year) I took June’s picture. We crossed the street to her bus stop where the parents made arrangements for June and another girl to walk to school most days. Naomi is in fourth grade and the only other kid left at our shrinking bus stop. Today June and Naomi took the bus, though, because they were both weighed down with school supplies. Naomi’s dad is going to walk with them the first couple days because she and her folks are all a little nervous. June continues to usher her peers into the exciting world of walking around in the world without adults.

Around seven hours later, June got home, saying, “I have something to show you.” It was a safety patrol belt. She didn’t know if she was going to be on the safety patrol until today and she had her heart set on it. Her assignment will be to take Head Start preschoolers from their classroom to the bus room.

She said Mrs. F, the math teacher, randomly breaks out in various foreign accents in class, but she favors the Russian accent. She had homework, to write a letter to Mr. S, her English/social studies teacher, introducing herself. “It’s good to be back to school,” she said.

Noah was home about fifteen minutes after June. He was pretty sure he was in the wrong band. In fact, he thought it wasn’t Concert Band or Symphonic Band but the Advanced Ensemble, which is definitely out of his league. So he’s going to fill out a schedule change request form at school tomorrow and I wrote his advisor, because I don’t expect resolving this to be easy or straightforward. I wrote on Facebook I wouldn’t mind Gandalf swooping in and fixing it for him. And while he’s at it, if he wanted to fix the air conditioning at Noah’s school, that would be nice, too.

At dinner, I asked June if being on the safety patrol was like being a prefect in the Harry Potter books. Yes, she said with satisfaction and then noted that while most kids on the patrol wear silver badges, about ten each month get gold ones, and that’s like being Head Boy or Head Girl, though not quite as good because there’s not just one.

“You’re my Head Girl,” I told her, and turning to Noah, I said, “And you’re my Head Boy.”

They will always be my Head Girl and Boy, whether this year is terrible, awesome, or somewhere in between.

I was surprised on Monday afternoon when June brought home the sheet of paper indicating I was a chaperone alternate for the field trip to the living history museum in St. Mary’s City the next day. I’d checked off the chaperone box when I filled out her permission slip—Beth and I agreed one of us would go but we hadn’t worked out which one of us. And then I got an email saying there were more people who wanted to chaperone than slots and it was a busy week for Beth because CWA is on strike at Verizon, so it seemed just as well.

However, the email said you could show up at school and see if there were any last minute openings, but I wasn’t planning to do that. In general, I prefer to know how my day is going to unfold well in advance. The fourth grade will be taking another field trip to the Chesapeake Bay later in the school year and we’d have priority for that trip if we sat this one out.

But then the paper June brought home Monday seemed to indicate they actually wanted people to come to school and see if there was space, so I decided I’d pack a lunch and bring the $10 admission fee with me when I dropped her off at school, just in case. June really wanted one of us to come and I thought I should make an attempt, though I didn’t expect anything to come of it. I had work, but no deadlines until the following week, so it was possible for me to go.

The time students were supposed to arrive was stated in different communications to be, variously, 7:30, 7:40, or 7:45. We aimed for the middle and got there just before 7:40. We saw June’s English/Social Studies teacher in the hall on our way to the cafeteria where the kids were gathering, and she said she thought there would be room on the buses because three fourth graders have recently transferred to other schools. And then the teacher with the clipboard taking chaperones’ names and cell phone numbers and collecting money said in addition one fourth grader was absent, so he also thought I could go.

I texted Beth “Looks like I’m going on this trip,” so she’d know where I was.

Knowing my aversion to spontaneity, she texted back, “You are a very good mom.”

So I settled in to wait with June and her friends in the cafeteria. The buses didn’t arrive on time, so we didn’t actually get underway until almost 8:30. The five fourth grade classes were split across three charter buses and there was a little confusion about where everyone should sit, so I wasn’t convinced that I was really going on this field trip until the bus was in motion and I was still on board.

The kids were excited to be on a bus with plush seats, a bathroom, and best of all, several television screens. June and I sat in the last row of seats, just opposite the bathroom, with her friends Zoë and Evie in the row in front of us.

Shortly after we got underway The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe started playing. June and I read the Chronicles of Narnia last summer and fall and at first she seemed excited to see it, even though she was lukewarm about the books. But the sound was not turned up very high, so her attention wandered. I don’t think I could have followed if I wasn’t familiar with the story—but having read the series over and over as a kid and once aloud to each of my kids, and having seen this adaptation about five years ago—I am very familiar. I can’t read on moving vehicles without getting sick and I was wary of putting on my headphones and thus missing any announcements or instructions so the diversion was welcome. June went back and forth between watching the movie, reading a Dork Diaries book, talking and playing hangman with Zoë and Evie and looking out the window.

We arrived at the St. Mary’s historic site around 10:30. It had been raining when we left and I’d been hoping it would clear up while we were on the bus, but it was still gray and drizzly when we got there. In case you or one of your kids hasn’t been a fourth grader in Maryland, St. Mary’s City was the first English settlement in the state and it was also the first capital of Maryland. All the fourth graders in our county study its history and culture for much of the year and then visit it in the spring.

We started with the Yaocomaco Indian village. There were several houses made of bent saplings and grass, with beds and household tools inside. The guide pointed out a woven shelter in the garden area where boys had to sit with a basket of rocks to throw at garden pests. I asked June if she’d like that chore this summer and she said no. There were no actors in the Yaocomaco village, but apparently current members of the Piscataway tribe do occasionally act out scenes there.

From there we moved to a tobacco plantation where we met an indentured servant who was making mint tea in the kitchen of the planters’ house. She explained you could tell her master was prosperous because he had a two-story house with glass windows and a wooden floor. The guide took us out to the garden, which wasn’t planted yet but explained that all food and medicine would come from the garden, as it was “the CVS of the seventeenth century.” We saw some livestock around the house, mostly cows and chickens, though I caught a glimpse of a pig in the woods.

Our next stop was the town itself where we visited a tobacco barn, a general store (“the Walmart of the seventeenth century”), and a print shop (“the Staples of the seventeenth century”). At each stop we met actors playing the parts of a farmer, another indentured servant, a storekeeper, and a printer. I asked June as we walked from one building to another if there were any slaves in St. Mary’s. It was a tobacco farming community so I thought there must have been. June was well informed on the point, “Not until the eighteenth century,” she told me.

As we moved from building to building, a few kids were picked as volunteers to shape an axe blade, to use the counting board to calculate a shoppers’ bill, or to ink the letters on the printing press. At the inn, our guide picked kids and told stories about reasons why they were staying at the inn—to appear in court was a popular one—and then had them lie down on the bed. Evie was being tried for witchcraft and she could be heard later in the day declaring, “I’m a witch!” with some enthusiasm.

When it was Zoë’s turn the guide was telling a story about a man travelling to meet his girlfriend who would soon arrive by ship. After she’d referred to Zoë, who has short hair, as “he” and “Joey” a few times, I started to wonder if I should correct her. I was standing close enough to lean in and whisper. But I wasn’t sure if Zoë would appreciate that or find it more embarrassing. While I was equivocating, the kids started to giggle, and when they did the guide shushed them and said to Zoë, “You’re a good sport, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am a good sport,” Zoë said. “I’m also a girl and my name is Zoë.” Her tone was just right, not disrespectful, but self-assured. I could not have pulled that off in fourth grade.

We took a break then to have lunch in the bus because it was still raining and we watched a little more of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as we ate. I hadn’t eaten much breakfast, thinking I was just dropping June off at school, so I was pretty hungry by that point. My apple and container of vanilla Greek yogurt didn’t seem quite sufficient, but it was what I had. Worse still, the pint of bottled water June and I were sharing was definitely not enough for a whole day. I’d thought there would be water fountains somewhere, but there were no water fountains in the seventeenth century.

Our last stop was the Dove, a recreation of one of the boats that brought supplies to the colonists and carried tobacco back to England. June was most excited to see this as they had studied the boat. After touring the boat itself we went to various stations on the dock where a block and tackle and different navigational tools were demonstrated.

At the very last station, the guide asked for anyone who hadn’t volunteered yet, and June, who’d patiently raised her hand at every station and two other girls who were also never picked seemed about to get their turns. The artifact was a “honey bucket” to carry human waste to be thrown overboard. The guide explained its use but never asked the volunteers to do anything (though at this station I’m not sure anyone would want to demonstrate). When the group was dismissed, one of the girls lost her temper, asking, “Why did you ask for volunteers?” but there was no answer. June was a bit put out, too, but she didn’t let it spoil her mood.

We all trooped back to the bus. We’d been running a half hour late ever since we left the school and then around forty-five minutes into the ride one of the buses overheated and ours stopped, too, in order to stick together. We were stopped about twenty minutes, so we were almost an hour late returning to school. There was another movie to watch, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. By the end of the day the bathroom on the bus was starting to smell like a honey bucket. I was sorry to be sitting so near it and I was also getting dehydrated and headachy and I was hungry, too.

We went into June’s school to fill our water bottle before walking the mile home, but I couldn’t shake the headache, so instead of making black bean and spinach tacos for dinner as I’d planned, I just heated up a vegetarian hot dog for June (she got herself some strawberries), ate some cottage cheese straight out the container, told Noah to make himself something for dinner, took a painkiller and went to lie down for a while.

Eventually I felt well enough to read a chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to June on the porch while we waited for her ride to her Girl Scout meeting, but the family who usually drives her to Girl Scouts forgot so she missed the meeting.

This seemed par for the course as it had been a day of the unexpected, both good and bad, but I was glad to have spent part of it in the seventeenth century with my favorite lass.