And She's Off!

Well, she did it! We dropped Amanda off at Governor's School this past Sunday. It was an emotional weekend with her excited one moment and dreading it the next. I don't know if you know this about Amanda but she doesn't like new things. As a kid she was always making friends but hated any new adventure I took her on. Most kids like the beach, but not Amanda. Incessant grumbling and whining accompanied every trip. The same goes for the mall or taking her for walks, even though I'd buy a brand new toy for her before the walk. She's just very particular and likes what she likes. Don't try to convince her to like or try anything else because she won't do it.
But back to the story. It was difficult to get all of the Buttons ready to get out the door on time and we barely made it to Murfreesboro before the 11am cutoff. And once we got there Amanda remembered that she'd left her folder full of notarized papers on the kitchen counter despite the fact that Travis had gone through the house and found something else she forgot and asked her if she was sure she had everything and she responded with a very impatient "YES!". I'm not sure where she gets that attitude from. So Travis and Amanda ran inside while Taylor and I got the girls out of the car. Then we found out that they had more papers available for just such an occasion and that they didn't need to be notarized. It would have been helpful to know that on errand day. So we got her all registered and just as a little side note- I was entertaining the little girls and Halle was drinking a bottle of Dasani and said "Mmmm, agua, gracias!" to which I replied "denada". So cute.

Then we took Amanda to her dorm to get her all set up . As I walked in I was so underwhelmed. I'm not sure what I was expecting but I wasn't expecting that. It was old and smelly and icky. But you couldn't tell that from the outside because it was brick and brick ages pretty well. So we found her room and it was just as icky. Terrazzo floors (which have apparently come a long way because I can't find a photo of a 1960 terrazzo floor), cement block walls, leaking a/c, one window, two beds with rubber covered mattresses. Amanda promptly called it her prison cell and got very upset. Of course, at this point she didn't want to stay so the room wasn't helping. But I convinced her that we should make her bed and that it would look more homey and it helped. But we were running out of time before the parent/student orientation and needed to get some lunch before hand. And since we didn't know the area very well we wandered around a bit until we found a Zaxby's. The food was good but the wait to get it was long. But it was pretty crowded with GS parents and after church patrons so we tried to not be too anxious about it. Amanda started feeling sick during lunch, which is normal for her in a situation like this, and we tried to reassure her. Then we were off to the school again for orientation and at the end the speaker said "hug your kids and tell them goodbye and don't come back again until parents day." It was a bummer because we thought we had a couple more hours with her. We were going to go buy a mattress cover and some cleaning supplies but it had to wait for two weeks. There were lots of hugs and tears and hugs and more tears. But in the end she decided that she'd walk back to her dorm by herself instead of us driving her there- poor kid.

The ride home was quiet. Taylor had ridden with us and was riding back with "the parents" so it could have been uncomfortable but we listened to one of Pastor Dale's messages so no one felt like we had to talk. And when we got home I invited Taylor to stay for some pizza but he said he had to go, and really, he looked awful. He seemed to be choking back tears the whole time. Ah, young love!

I've talked to Amanda several times since then and the first couple of days were really rough. She kept saying that she didn't want to be there but she never asked to come home. She never even hinted at it really. She has 4 hours of dance rehearsals or combat training or choreography so she's pretty wiped out by the end of the day. She said that yesterday was the first day she didn't cry and at the end of the week she's going to Virginia to see the Blackfriars Playhouse. I wish I was going.

So we have 9 days until we see her again and we can spend the whole day with her. Then there are less than 3 weeks until we see her again and bring her home. Then she's most likely going to FL with her grandparents, but that's a story for another day.