Boys, college and my anxiety about all of it

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We went to a friend's church again tonight for dinner and the boys attend youth group. I love this place! The youth group leader is awesome. She spent tonight telling me how helpful and polite my boys are.

That is always good to hear, because I'll tell you - living in a house with three teenage boys, sometimes you forget that they are human. Sometimes even I need reminded that they are polite, helpful kids who don't always burp and fight with each other. I know, I didn't believe it at first, either.

We have an appointment on Tuesday with the college. Christian will go ahead and apply, and we will decide if it is worth it for him to get the tuition guarantee. I'll be honest - sometimes I think it won't be. He is going to have to jump through some hoops, because we are new residents. He has to take the ACT, which is something we hadn't planned on. I am sure he is ready academically, but he has never taken a timed test before. I never took it, and Marty took it 20 years ago, so we aren't much help. The guy at the book store (who happens to be the son of a friend of ours from Detroit - it really is a small world!) told hiom not to worry about it. He said that he took him the morning after his senior prom, and that he was "a mess."

We got him an ACT prep book, and we will work through it until he is comfortable with the test.

One of the things that we had to do in order to graduate him was actually register him as a homeschooled student. Mississippi has some crazy homeschool laws - they have to register, but the information is basically worthless. They are only allowed to ask for their names, address and date of birth. They then ask what form of alternate education they will receive, you check the box that says homeschool and write "grade appropriate" or even just "homeschool." Really, why bother?

Each county determins who you register with, and where they are. In Lauderdale county, you register with the attendance enforcment officers at the juvinile hall. Seriously. We had to go to juvie. When we walked in there was a kid who couldn't have been more than 11 or 12 standing there in hand cuffs with a police escort.

Of course, the woman told who handed me the cards told me that I had to put more information than they are allowed to ask for. She told me that I had to list the books I would be using. I wasn't going to argue with her because we were surrounded by police officers and I am a wimp, so I just wrote "The Well Trained Mind." I'm pretty sure they won't have a clue.