Please Excuse My Parenting
/I have been involved with our local public schools for eleven years now. And that's not counting two years of private preschool my daughter had before entering her kindergarten year.
You know what eleven years of having children attend school does to a mother?
Nothing good I assure you. It's as though as my children are becoming more educated I'm becoming dumber. I think this has something to do with the many years of having my soul sucked out of me from all the homework assignments, report cards, school musicals, assemblies, parent teacher interviews and visits to the principal's office I've had to endure over the years.
No one tells you that by raising children you'll have to go to school all over again.
Just when I thought I was free from the damn place.
Ahem.
So when my son woke me up this morning by looking very contrite and slightly miserable I knew nothing good was going to come out of his mouth.
"Mom, I need you to write me a note."
Bleary eyed, I squinted up at him and sighed while debating over the merits of just ignoring him and putting a pillow over my head and playing dead until he went away. However, I've tried that tactic before and never found much success with it. My children are a lot of things, and persistent is right at the top of the list.
"What did you do this time?" Yawn.
"Well, besides the fact I was tossed out of class for kneeing a kid in the nuts during science class, I forgot my permission slip. And there is a field trip today."
I momentarily weighed which issue was more important and decided to go with the groin injury.
"Why did you knee a kid in the nuts? Are you a psychopath?"
"No Mom," he sighed heavily, like I was intellectually challenged. "He kneed me in the balls first. We were just horsing around. You know, boy fun. Anyways, I had the bad luck to return the favour just as the teacher walked into the room."
Boy fun now includes damaging each other's man bits. Here I thought boy fun was a good fashioned video game challenge or a slam-dunk competition. Obviously as a girl, I will never understand the minds of teenaged boys.
"Well, I've always told you if you are going to knee someone in the 'nads, you should be smart enough to do it when you won't get caught."
"Very funny Mom."
"Ya, I thought so," I muttered as I struggled to wake up.
"So I need that note."
"What?" I was still stuck on the kneeing someone in the groin constitutes as junior high fun.
"For the field trip today."
"What field trip? I know nothing about a field trip."
"We're going to the local athletic center to swim and stuff."
"Why am I just hearing about this now?"
"Because my permission slip has been stuffed in my locker for the last two weeks and I keep forgetting to bring it home. But don't worry. I just need a note and twenty bucks and I can still go."
At which point I considered hitting him with a pillow. But he'd probably just think I was having teenaged boy fun.
Bonehead.
So I wrote him a note. Because I just adore writing notes to my kid's teachers explaining to them why my kids are irresponsible.
After I wrote the note, Frac read it and handed it back and said, "I can't give this to my gym teacher. Can't you just give me permission and be normal about it?"
Um, no. It's like he's never met me.
His note, which I refused to rewrite because there had to be some sliver of punishment involved with this morning's transgressions read as follows:
Mr. (Name Redacted to protect the innocent),
Please allow my dopey, irresponsible son, Frac, to go on today's field trip to the athletic center even though he never brought home the permission slip or informed me of this field trip until this morning when I was still half asleep and too lazy to actually lecture him about his delinquent behaviour.
Further more please feel free to harass him appropriately, which may or may not include beating him. (However, on a legal note, I suggest sticking to beating him with wet noodles or licorice sticks, as they don't tend to leave a mark. I'd hate to see you get fired because of my irresponsible son.)
I'd beat him myself but he's grown freakishly tall and I can't reach that high any more without a step stool and he refuses to stand still long enough for me to engage in said activity.
If beating him is not an option, feel free to let the gym class use him as target practice in a rousing game of dodge ball. That would be a win win, as it may actually motivate him to move as he runs for his life. Exercise does a body good, as I'm sure you are aware, being a physical education teacher.
Thanks so much,
Tanis.
"Oh great. Another note from you that they'll pin up on the bulletin board in the staff room. Oh goodie."
I do live to serve.
In other news, when I haven't been busy writing notes to my teacher's kids this week, I've been writing over on my Babble blog, Hogwash from a Hoser.
I've got a post up about the inherent evils of snowpants which discusses eating the frozen carcasses of dogs and teens alike and talking about why I was a virgin until I was 20 years old. Oh ya. Over sharing at it's finest.
I also wrote about what the holidays look like to our family and it isn't always filled with candy canes and sugarplums.
And then there was the post about why all panties should just be banned.
In the meantime, look out for my annual Etsy gift guide coming soon. I'm hard at work on it right now. And by hard at work, I mean listening to Nickelback's new album and cleaning up the dog vomit on my kitchen floor.
The fun never stops I tell ya.
You know what eleven years of having children attend school does to a mother?
Nothing good I assure you. It's as though as my children are becoming more educated I'm becoming dumber. I think this has something to do with the many years of having my soul sucked out of me from all the homework assignments, report cards, school musicals, assemblies, parent teacher interviews and visits to the principal's office I've had to endure over the years.
No one tells you that by raising children you'll have to go to school all over again.
Just when I thought I was free from the damn place.
Ahem.
So when my son woke me up this morning by looking very contrite and slightly miserable I knew nothing good was going to come out of his mouth.
"Mom, I need you to write me a note."
Bleary eyed, I squinted up at him and sighed while debating over the merits of just ignoring him and putting a pillow over my head and playing dead until he went away. However, I've tried that tactic before and never found much success with it. My children are a lot of things, and persistent is right at the top of the list.
"What did you do this time?" Yawn.
"Well, besides the fact I was tossed out of class for kneeing a kid in the nuts during science class, I forgot my permission slip. And there is a field trip today."
I momentarily weighed which issue was more important and decided to go with the groin injury.
"Why did you knee a kid in the nuts? Are you a psychopath?"
"No Mom," he sighed heavily, like I was intellectually challenged. "He kneed me in the balls first. We were just horsing around. You know, boy fun. Anyways, I had the bad luck to return the favour just as the teacher walked into the room."
Boy fun now includes damaging each other's man bits. Here I thought boy fun was a good fashioned video game challenge or a slam-dunk competition. Obviously as a girl, I will never understand the minds of teenaged boys.
"Well, I've always told you if you are going to knee someone in the 'nads, you should be smart enough to do it when you won't get caught."
"Very funny Mom."
"Ya, I thought so," I muttered as I struggled to wake up.
"So I need that note."
"What?" I was still stuck on the kneeing someone in the groin constitutes as junior high fun.
"For the field trip today."
"What field trip? I know nothing about a field trip."
"We're going to the local athletic center to swim and stuff."
"Why am I just hearing about this now?"
"Because my permission slip has been stuffed in my locker for the last two weeks and I keep forgetting to bring it home. But don't worry. I just need a note and twenty bucks and I can still go."
At which point I considered hitting him with a pillow. But he'd probably just think I was having teenaged boy fun.
Bonehead.
So I wrote him a note. Because I just adore writing notes to my kid's teachers explaining to them why my kids are irresponsible.
After I wrote the note, Frac read it and handed it back and said, "I can't give this to my gym teacher. Can't you just give me permission and be normal about it?"
Um, no. It's like he's never met me.
His note, which I refused to rewrite because there had to be some sliver of punishment involved with this morning's transgressions read as follows:
Mr. (Name Redacted to protect the innocent),
Please allow my dopey, irresponsible son, Frac, to go on today's field trip to the athletic center even though he never brought home the permission slip or informed me of this field trip until this morning when I was still half asleep and too lazy to actually lecture him about his delinquent behaviour.
Further more please feel free to harass him appropriately, which may or may not include beating him. (However, on a legal note, I suggest sticking to beating him with wet noodles or licorice sticks, as they don't tend to leave a mark. I'd hate to see you get fired because of my irresponsible son.)
I'd beat him myself but he's grown freakishly tall and I can't reach that high any more without a step stool and he refuses to stand still long enough for me to engage in said activity.
If beating him is not an option, feel free to let the gym class use him as target practice in a rousing game of dodge ball. That would be a win win, as it may actually motivate him to move as he runs for his life. Exercise does a body good, as I'm sure you are aware, being a physical education teacher.
Thanks so much,
Tanis.
"Oh great. Another note from you that they'll pin up on the bulletin board in the staff room. Oh goodie."
I do live to serve.
In other news, when I haven't been busy writing notes to my teacher's kids this week, I've been writing over on my Babble blog, Hogwash from a Hoser.
I've got a post up about the inherent evils of snowpants which discusses eating the frozen carcasses of dogs and teens alike and talking about why I was a virgin until I was 20 years old. Oh ya. Over sharing at it's finest.
I also wrote about what the holidays look like to our family and it isn't always filled with candy canes and sugarplums.
And then there was the post about why all panties should just be banned.
In the meantime, look out for my annual Etsy gift guide coming soon. I'm hard at work on it right now. And by hard at work, I mean listening to Nickelback's new album and cleaning up the dog vomit on my kitchen floor.
The fun never stops I tell ya.