Back to School Night
As a first time mom with a child in kindergarten, I had no clue what to expect from our first back to school night. Luckily Buddy’s teachers are wonderful ladies. They walked us through the normal procedures and patiently answered all of our questions (intelligent and otherwise).
The teachers had left each child’s journal out for the parents to look at what they’ve been doing. Each day the kids are to write what they see on the board in their journal. They had only been in school for five days, but you could already see the improvement. The first day’s writing took the entire page, no lines were used and some of the letters flowed over one another. The second day was a little better, only half the page and each letter had its personal space. From the third day on, the words started to be on consistent lines. By the fifth day, you could actually read the message. Each parent was allowed to leave a note for their child to read the next day.
While trying to complete my note for Buddy, I noticed a couple of mothers over by the cubbies looking at what Buddy had written on his “Get to know me” list. They had strange looks on their faces.
Each child was to fill in what they like to do, their favorite color and what they can do all by themselves. Most of the children had given normal answers like swimming, riding my bike, go to the bathroom, etc. Not Buddy. For both, “what I like to do” and “what I can do by myself,” he wrote the following:
“Drive the forklift.”
Now, since I’m married to a farmer and living on a farm, I didn’t think much of it. But apparently the rest of the world does. Here is how the conversation sounded:
“Tell me that is a toy.”
“No ma’am. It’s real. But you have to keep in mind he is sitting on his dad’s lap and just runs the controls by himself.” (Her jaw continues to get closer to the floor.)
Thankfully the other mom piped up. “Oh honey, I grew up on a farm that’s totally normal.” The slack-jawed mom simply started to distance herself from us. Then the second mother and I started a conversation.
The strangest part of the whole thing, was when I told my husband this story, he proceeded to tell me that he really does run the forklift all by himself (he doesn’t sit on daddy’s lap anymore). He then went on about how good he is at it.
Maybe I should start to worry.
Backseat Confessions 