When his father bought him a new guitar, my son gave up playing the violin, quit his school orchestra, and devoted himself to guitar lessons. I didn’t really mind. After three years of classic violin, he wasn’t quitting music, he was simply switching to a new instrument. Rather than Bach and Vivaldi, he would learn how to read guitar chords. I told myself my son would still reap the benefits of  being an amateur musician. He would know sight-reading, appreciate composers, and continue to improve his math skills.  So I switched from paying for a monthly violin rental to weekly guitar lessons. …

Between folding his undershirts, sorting his socks, and lining up his chapstick in order of favorites, he is the most orderly person in our house. Nobody knows where he gets it from, since my husband and I, and his two brothers, are all challenged when it comes to being, um, neat. But this particular third grader lines up his shoes each night, hangs up jackets without being reminded and was once caught clipping his soccer shorts onto pants hangers.  So what’s the problem, you might ask? Isn’t it great having a kid who would be perfect as a professional organizer one day? Well, there’s nothing…

On one end of Westville Avenue is the preschool my son attended, at the other end is the high school he will enter this fall. Yet the distance between feels more like a lifetime than a couple of miles. It seems like yesterday my son was wearing his Pokemon backpack and learning how to use scissors. Now, he’s taller than me and wears size 10 shoes. That should have been a clue that he was growing up, yet I was still caught off-guard when I was invited recently to parent’s night for incoming high school freshmen. All of the parents looked like deer caught in headlights. We didn’t know which …