Back to School Night!

My husband was out of town on business on Back to School Night at my kids' elementary school, so I had the privilege of attending the festivities solo.

I stopped by Kellen's kindergarten room long enough to wish his teacher (who was Camber's teacher last year) good luck...and admire her purple fingernail polish and sparkly gold toe ring.

"Very fancy," I observed.

I got to my daughter's first grade classroom late. I missed the introductions and slide show set to music, but I did get to inspect the contents of my daughter's desk, which included an illegal collection of push pins and a bag of moldy grapes.

I arrived at Cortlen's kindergarten room just as his teacher was summarizing the highlights of the first week of school. "Well," she said triumphantly, "We made it through the first week with only one bout of crying and one unrelated self-inflicted injury."

The classroom erupted in giggles. I would have laughed too, had the child who committed both offenses not been mine.

Cortlen confessed to crying in his seat the day that it happened. His teacher hands out gold stars each day for keeping one's hands to oneself. The worry that he would not accumulate enough stars by the end of the week to earn a small plastic snake from the prize basket was more than he could handle. The self-inflicted injury was an accident. He had been demonstrating to his new friends the proper way to ward off an attacker and forgot to back away from his own punch.

"I'm Cortlen's mom," I confessed to my son's teacher my way out the door.

The long pause that followed left me feeling like I should say something else. I didn't know what to say, so I said the first thing that popped into my head (which is usually the right thing).

"I have a feeling that I'll be providing your entertainment this year."