H starts school tomorrow. Which means that last week she finished up her summer reading and started working on the written portion of the assignment. As usual, she waits until the veeerrryy last minute to do it. Sunday afternoon I came into my office and she was emailing all her files to my computer so that she could print them out. Something wasn’t right. Oh yeah.

“Do you want me to proofread for you?”

“No, Mom, I’ve got it.”

What? Not that reading over her assignments is something I enjoy, or particularly want to do, but she always asks me to do it.

She finished up her business, loaded up her laptop, and left.

Then, as soon as I sat down, she was back.

“Mom, close all those files for me, O.K.?”

And she stood there while I closed them all.

Later, she brought down the “project” to show me, with her fancy cover sheets and plastic report cover. I reached for it. She pulled it back.

“Let me read it!”

“No, that’s o.k…”

“Please, I just want to read it.”

(I had read two of her books so I wanted to see her take on them).

She looked at me in the eyes, stuttered a little, and said,

“I don’t want you to read it. I’m happy with it, and I don’t want you to suggest any changes.”

I guess my baby’s growing up. Welcome to High School.