Friday, February 29, 2008

I'm a M. O. A. L. F.

In case you don't know what this stands for, I'm a Mother Of A Little Felon. I received my first disciplinary call from the school about my child. The said child is Ross.

I got a call from his teacher today telling me that he carved his name into his chair. I really tried not to giggle as she was explaining his infraction to me. She said she explained to him that her future students wouldn't want to sit in a chair all year that said "ROSS." I certainly don't mean to downplay the situation, but really? Have you ever sat in a chair that someone had written/carved on and could think of nothing else than that graffiti? I can come up with a better reason as to why he shouldn't have done it. She did too, but I thought that reasoning was amusing.

He was missing recess, thinking of how he could rectify the situation, as she was calling me. His idea was to do chores to earn money to buy a new chair. At 40 bucks my house is gonna shine! He also thought he could try to use sandpaper to fix it. That could be a possibility. So, his teacher made him call me himself and explain the situation. He did, and he didn't sound as upset as I thought he might be for his first trip to the principal. That's right, the principal got involved as well as the janitor. This was serious.

Later in the afternoon I went to the kids' school to attend the Valentine's party that was rescheduled for the second time due to the snow and ice we had for two weeks. Let me tell you, the carving was MUCH BIGGER than I was anticipating. Again, I had a hard time not giggling. On the back of his chair (the part that his back rests on) "ROSS" is carved in about three inch letters! Oh man!

So, the teacher was pretty serious about the situation. She kind of acted like he defaced the U.S. Constitution. Again, I'm not trying to downplay what he did - it was wrong. He said he just wasn't thinking. I believe that, because he's really a good & responsible kid at school.

Later in the day, I ran into the principal. With a smile on her face she asked if we had everything under control. I said yes and apologized. She started laughing and said she had three kids so she knows how that goes. Then she started laughing hysterically and said, "Maybe next time he won't write his own name."

*Another note to this story is how much Ross is like his father. When Edward was in the second or third grade another kid talked him into writing a cuss word (which, of course, my darling husband was clueless of the meaning) on the wall of a tunnel on the playground. His crime was discovered, and he had to bring a note home to his parents telling them he was caught writing the F-word. The funniest thing is he was spelling it wrong! He had the middle two letters mixed up.

Oh, the joys of parenthood!