Mamarati

So, I wish that over the years I’d been a smart mom and had written down all the funny things my kid has said. I thought I’d remember them all. Right. I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast.

Anyway — here’s a few:

Music Class — In his music class the teacher wanted them to all hold hands and sing a song. Now, why on earth a teacher would want these 6th graders to hold hands is completely beyond me. I personally think that kids can hold hands during songs until about 4th grade and then they can start it again about senior year. In the years between, no forced hand-holding should really be happening. It’s just awkward, embarrassing moments waiting to happen, no?

Anyway, so I guess it’s some D.A.R.E. song. He said the lyrics were pretty dumb. (I was already envisioning some Donnie Darkoesque scene in my head here.) So the first things he comments on about this is that this girl was next to him and she didn’t want to hold hands with anyone so she was holding her hands in at her sides. So he backed up and then one of his friends came up behind him and pushed him into the girl. So, he reached out to avoid slamming right into her and accidentally touched her boob.

The way he said “boob” was about the most hilarious thing I have ever heard. And it’s the first time I’ve ever heard this sound or combination of sounds come out of my young son’s mouth. It was all wavering and high-pitched. He followed it up with a weird puberty laugh and then sang out “awkward.”

OMG. Boobs!

Then he started commenting on how old this song must be, like, from the 80s or something, ugh! I asked him how he knew this song was so old. Because, mom, it says “going to the mat.”

?

W
T
H

?

“You know, mom, the laundromat? Like, where people in the 80s used to go for drugs. Duh.”

I about fell out laughing. So, I explained to him what “going to the mat” meant and then he quickly replaced his regular “duh” with Folger’s “oh, so that’s what it means” crystals.

In other news, you may or may not remember that last year he was given detention for reading in the library. Well, so it begins this year with the same librarian.

This time, she won’t let him in the Newbery Medal Book Club despite the fact that he’s read about 2/3 of the books on the list. You only have to read four of the books to get in the club, but since he read most of them last year or over the summer, “It doesn’t count.”

Now, what the hell does that mean?

I swear, I’ve never seen a librarian do more to discourage readers in my life. Here my kid finds something he’s good at and loves doing and wants to be part of the club and she’s making him feel all frustrated about it.

She said he could check the books out that he read and then check them back in and that would prove that he’d read them. I think that is completely unnecessary. I really do. I know what books he’s read. I could probably get the Fort Worth Library to print something out to that effect. Even so, you’d think that as his parent, I could just write a note or something. Or hey, how about you just believe that my kid read the books. How about you start the year off on the right foot and just believe my kid? How about the benefit of the doubt? I mean, please, please tell me who is going to LIE to get into the Newbery Book Club?????? Who, pray tell, who?

So, I’m trying to be all positive and supportive and I tell him to just pick four other books on the list and read those. He wants to read them all anyway. But no, she’s ignited his stubborn streak and now he doesn’t even want to be in the “stupid” club.

Thanks.

And here I am trying to finish school and get my Library Science degree. But it’s fine. He’ll read the books and he’ll do it from the public library or half.com. She hasn’t killed his spirit, yet. But he’s already said he doesn’t want to go to the school library any more and that’s a damn shame. Sure, I will talk him into it at some point when he’s not so pissed off about this, but like, how many other kids are discouraged in the same ways who don’t have word nerd parents encouraging them to take a book wherever they can get it?