No More Pencils, No More Books, No More Visits to the Principal’s Office . . .

Posted On June 1, 2009

Friday marked the last day of school for my boys. Boy #1 has now officially earned the title of middle schooler (*suppressed sob/silent scream*), and Boy #2 passed 1st grade with flying colors, earning an “I” for “Inconsistent” only in “Keeps track of his personal belongings” and “Brings things back on time.” Not quite a shocker for those of us who know (and parent) him.

So those of you with school-aged kids can probably picture the storm of papers, folders, pencil cases, long lost mittens discovered at the bottom of the locker, and summer packets that blew into our house about 3:05 p.m. Friday afternoon. I’d like to tell you that I sorted through all of the boys’ things, pitching and organizing to my heart’s content. However, it’s me we’re talking about. Yes, most of the items still lay where they were dropped—in the entryway, on the kitchen table, or liberally spread throughout the bottom three-quarters of the stairs.

There were a few things I took the time to look at right away, though. One was Boy #2’s First-Grade Book, which is a memory book of sorts, with one page dedicated to each first-grader in his school. There are pages where he collected the scrawling signatures of his classmates, and other pages where the teachers told a bit about themselves. But the first page of the book is the one that immediately got my attention. It was a “fill-in-the-blank” page, where each student could record his own highlights of the school year.

Here’s what Boy #2 wrote.

I apologize for the quality of the scan and the little apple I used to conceal his teacher’s secret identity. But did you catch what he wrote? Let me help you out a bit.

He starts out all innocent, telling who his best friends were this year, and that one thing he will never forget is his teacher. Awww, what a sweet boy, huh?

Well, it’s when he’s caught you completely off-guard that he does a sucker-punch to the gut and shatters my dream of ever winning the highly coveted Perfect-Mom-Who-Rears-Perfect-Children Award.

His next line reads, and I quote:
“The funniest thing that happened this year was when I stuck out my weiner in the lunch room.“

And no, he’s not talking about the Oscar Mayer kind.

My sister tried to console me by commending his language arts skills.

“Wow—he even spelled ‘weiner’ right!”

That he did. That he did.

I did have to say a quick prayer of thanks that he did not write this on his “About Me” page that was photocopied and included in all the books that went home with his 100+ classmates. I’m pretty sure we would’ve had to put our house up for sale and move to another school district.

But the beacon of light in this situation is the knowledge that I’ll have the authority to create a special place to display this page at his high school graduation reception. Because it’s all about revenge the memories, isn’t it?