A Back to School Story for Your Enjoyment

This is my eight year old now. . .going on 24!!! This is a story about him just three years ago.
My son, now going into third grade took me for a loop the first day of kindergarten. We lived in the Big D at the time. We had a 45 minute commute on the toll road to a very nice private school. He would go two days a week, but we paid the price of a college if you ask me. I felt very good about our decision to send him there because he was on track for learning Latin in the third grade. You know the basis of our language might be helpful for his career as a doctor. He could be the next Doogie Howser, MD. You never know.

Let's rewind a couple of years, it was the very first day of kindergarten for my first born. I do have to tell you we rolled in about 3 am from a family reunion the night before. I stopped at Kroger to get some frozen waffles about 2:30 am just to make sure we had a great breakfast to get his day started off right. . .in what like 3 hours? Are you catching on to what might happen here?

I took him to school that morning. I have pics of how adorable he looks in his cute little private school uniform. By the way, all they accept as clothes are Lands End, but we were in seminary for pete's sake. Who has extra money for Land's End?

All day I wondered how he was doing. I wondered if he was getting along with the other kids and making friends. I figured I would pick him up and get an amazing glowing report at how well he took to the new Latin vocabulary words and that he was a natural.

I started on my way to get him. I was in the line with all of the other pimped up cars and I saw smoke spewing out of my 96 Jeep Grand Cherokee. (By the way, I have one for sale.) The smoke was pretty thick and I thought I better move this puppy out of the car line before we all explode. I pulled to the side, cut the car off and called on my trac phone to get help. My hubby started making the trip to rescue the family.

In the meantime, I still needed to pick up my son, so I walked across the parking lot to get him. I am sure that he was expecting a car, but all he had was me so I walked in the school to get him. His teacher found me quickly, and said, "Are you Hansel's mom?" I said yeah a little haggardly, but still expecting the praise report to come gushing now. She said,"Hansel had a little trouble today. You will need to talk with him at home about some of the things he did today. He taught all of the other kids "potty" words like poo poo and pee pee during lunch." I said I was so sorry and I would definitely talk with him at home and we would straighten this out.

I steered him away from the teacher and back to see if I could get my car and child under control. Right before I escaped into the parking lot, the "Head Master" stopped me. He said, "Is Hansel your son?" I am thinking, no. . .he is a neighbor's kid and I am just picking him up for today. I gritted my teeth and said yes. The Head Master said, "We had a few problems with him today and he will not be able to go to this school with this kind of behavior." I apologized and said, "We will straighten this out." He said that Hansel's teacher left for a few minutes and he had to check in on the class and asked that the class quieten down a little. Hansel blurted out, "You're not the boss of us."

No!!! This is not my child. The Head Master was actually quite ticked off about this little five year old telling him that he was not the boss. I don't know where he gets that kind of attitude??? :( So I told the Head Master, "Talk to the hand." Just kidding.

I was pretty much in shock at this point. Hansel has a lot of energy and sometimes gets a little ahead of himself, but I had never known him to be downright disrespectful or rude. I am not sure what was wrong with him. All I knew was that my car had just about caught on fire, my first born child's first day of kindergarten was a disaster and I was having to patiently wait for a ride home. I felt a little delirious. Several people stopped to see if I needed help and really hitching a 45 minute ride at that point did not sound appealing with someone I did not know.

Finally, hubs came to pick us up and I cried all the way home.

So, if today is your child's first day of kindergarten. . .lower your expectations just a hair and take it from me . . .it will probably not be this bad.