Now Boarding ....

Knit 10, purl 10. Repeat as the basket weave pattern emerges.

I’ve knitted 27,900 stitches since Ben finished his second year of boarding school on June 10, and I’ve got 9,600 to go before he decamps for his third on September 7.

The growing, cobalt blue afghan covers my lap as I work #10 circular needles, stubby wood spears linked with a loop of plastic tubing where stitches wait their turn.

The yarn is a wool and acrylic blend, soft but with some heft. I imagine my son wrapped in it on a November night – because to me, November is a bleak, dark month when a 15-year-old away from home could use a little warmth and comfort.

My husband and I are not boarding school people – at least, we never were.

Boarding school, in our minds, was where Park Avenue socialites parked kids who outgrew nannies; where British boys had the child paddled out of them, so they could become stiff-upper-lippers; where under-achievers made sullen efforts to rescue their futures before they went down the tubes.

I imagined boarding school as a year of Novembers. And now, for the third time, we are sending our son to one.

In fact, boys boarding schools are filled with kids like ours – teens lost in public education dedicated to the greatest good, but not the most vulnerable; teens who need predictable routines, small classes and adult eyes on them most of the time; teens who would marry their Xboxes if someone (who isn't The Mom) didn’t drag them onto a basketball court or into a school play.

No piercings. No green hair. No trousers floating somewhere between their waist and their knees. Rather, blazers and ties for class; chapel on Wednesday and Saturday mornings; mixers with girls on weekends.

In the last two years, I’ve compared notes with many boarding school parents, and most are like me – fiercely protective, fretful about others raising our sons, keenly aware that time is running out: When Ben does something impulsive at home, I shake my head and mutter, “Tick, tick, tick.”

Occasionally, I’ve run into a detached mother: Once, I drove Ben’s roommate home to Bethesda where his sweater-set mom handed me a plate of thank-you brownies, but couldn’t manage to give her son a hug.

But most Moms I meet on move-in day wear the same look of anxious optimism. We set up our kids’ dorm rooms and brief advisers, coaches, and infirmary nurses. When it’s time to leave, we avoid a sloppy goodbye with a quick “Learn something” and a whispered “I love you.” On the drive home, we pick fights with our husbands, because the sadness, worry, and guilty relief have to land somewhere.

But that part comes in two weeks. Now, I’ve got to finish this afghan, already long enough to cover Ben's feet, but nine inches shy of falling in comforting pools around him.

I knit and purl with increasing frenzy, aware that time with my son is running out -- tick, tick, tick.

Lisa Kaplan Gordon writes about her real life in McLean every Wednesday.