A Good Report

When the Boys were younger my least favorite day on the school calendar was one that rolled around just about this time of the semester. It's the day blocked off with an ominous-looking X that was labeled "NO SCHOOL. PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES."

This didn't actually become my least favorite day until we'd had children in school for a few years and had been lulled into complacency by the feel-good reports that had marked preschool and kindergarten.

"He does a great job!" "So nice and well-behaved!" "Reading well above grade level!"

Why, you'd have thought we were raising a whole pack Osmond children based on the reports of well-mannered overachieving.

Then came Boy#2's kindergarten year. Husband and I parked ourselves in the tiny little chairs they provide in the first grade room and prepared ourselves to respond humbly to the report we expected about the wonderfulness that was our second-born.

Mrs. P. didn't disappoint. He was so bright, and such a leader, and blah-ba-dee-blah. We cast our eyes down modestly.

"There's just one thing," and Mrs. P.'s sweet kindergarten-teacher-ish voice dropped to a whisper. "It's about...the spitting."

And at that point I died.

We had a nice, long family chat about spitting that night, but from there on out school conferences were accompanied by a wary expectation that someone was going to want to talk to me about spitting.

This weekend was Parents' Weekend at the university where Boy#1 and Boy#4 are enrolled. While it doesn't have carry the same dread of the unknown as school conferences did, this kind of weekend is designed so that moms and dads can see how things REALLY are going with their bay-bees. Are they healthy? Getting enough sleep? Keeping up in classes? Making friends? It's a wonderful relief to be able to answer yes, yes, yes, and yes.

It's also a wonderful relief that One and Four still like to hang out with us, and with each other, even if a certain oldest kid makes fun of his mother's favorite hobby, and so is getting his picture published in said hobby:

Also known as smart-aleck.

Ha. Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel, or with a woman who blogs. And because I've always been the mom who wants to keep things fair (hahahahaha!) a picture of the youngest kid as well:

Spiffy new band uniforms

I was glad I got this shot because I spent the rest of the evening squinting at the field and saying, "Is that him over there?" No, that's a trumpet player. "How about there?" Nope, that's a baritone.

At least there wasn't any spitting.