~ A note on Nate’s weekly homework/behavior sheet:
“Please return the film canister as soon as possible!!”
Dear Kindergarten Teacher,
I regret to inform you that the film canister, very carefully labeled with Nate’s name, slid out of his backpack when said backpack was unzipped. Where the film canister landed is anyone’s guess. [I won't tell her that it's "anyone's guess" because of the unfortunate state of our house] We did, thankfully, get the Kissing Hand treasure out of the backpack before this tragedy occurred. I apologize, a thousand times, for losing the clear plastic film canister.
Sincerely,
Nate’s Mom
~ another note on the sheet informs me that I must deliver my “monthly snacks” to kindergarten soon.
Monthly snacks? What monthly snacks? Clearly this is something that has gotten by me and/or slipped my mind. Was it listed on one of the umpteen forms that we signed? Is it hidden somewhere on the sheet of “who’s allowed to pick your child up from school in the case of an emergency and by the way where the heck are your snacks, you Bad Mother, you?” Is it on the form that says, “Do you want us to take your profusely bleeding kid to the hospital or are you going to let us just put a bandaid over this open wound and call it a day, but more importantly, where are the darn Cheetos?” Or maybe it was on the form that said, “I don’t care if you already bought a cartload of items for this school and another cartload of new clothes for your kid who is outgrowing them as we speak, there is STILL a $16 “fee” for who-knows-what for the school and guess what, we’re going to have a fund-raiser before you can do the hokey-pokey and turn yourself around; FURTHERMORE, would it hurt you too damn much to buy a bag of chips or two for these 6-year-olds, you cheapskate, you?”
It must have been in one of those forms because my eyes blurred so much after signing my name and all of my friends’ names to the emergency forms, I mean all the people who are still my friends after asking them to be responsible for my kid’s life and limbs yet one more time and then in some tiny print there was the demand that I do yet one more thing and buy snacks for all the little heathens in his classroom once a month and one day per month come in and wipe their noses and smile while I’m doing it and what can I say, I plumb FORGOT?
So I guess I don’t get a smiley face on my behavior report. I got two reminders on my son’s sheet. I feel like such a Kindergarten Mom failure! That doesn’t even get me to the green color; that gets me to YELLOW!!! I sure hope I get smiley faces the rest of the week or else I won’t get anything from the treasure box this Friday! 
Besides that, if we’re judged on how our kids do, Nate had a bit of a tougher time last week and only got three smiley faces and two greens on his behavior sheet. OH MY!! AND he got written up at Y-Care which I realize is called Y-Care because it’s part of the YMCA but the pronunciation of Y-Care is really rather unfortunate.
“What do you do with Nate after school?”
Oh, I send him to “Why Care?”
See what I mean? Yeah.
It’s an adjustment, this kindergarten, an adjustment for all of us. Despite my smiling in person to everyone who asks and saying that everything is hunky-dory (although In Real Life, I rarely use words like “hunky-dory”), it really is an adjustment period. Because I am not only feeling like I. Am. Failing. Kindergarten., but I am getting very frustrated with Frank because every time I have to work late, he forgets Nate’s homework and then we have very little to NO time to get Nate’s homework done and then I’m left sounding like a shrew who says, yet again, “Do I have to do EVERYTHING around here?!”
But I digress.
Nate and Y-Care. Last week Nate got written up. Yes, he did. For spitting on a kid. Oh, but see, that’s not the whole story. He and this kid were fighting over a pump and the kid pushed him twice and that’s when Nate spit on him, so they both got consequences and written up. The teacher told me that she hadn’t had time to fill out the form completely (you know, the form they have to fill out when the kids get “written up”), so I’d have to sign it the next time I’d be in (which is this afternoon). Then, once I’d sign it, the form would be, and I quote — “sent Downtown.”
Well, how friggin’ ominous does THAT sound? “sent Downtown.”
I know what she means, but honestly, it sounds like it’s going to the durn poh-lice station. The fact is that the YMCA building is also Downtown. Oh-Kay. I hope she didn’t notice that my eyes bugged out a little bit, my heart skipped a beat, and I did a little intake of breath when she said “sent Downtown.”
But, thankfully, my child is not a felon yet. He just has one little incident report with Y-Care. Of course, Frank’s reaction? — “Who started it?”
Yeah.
So. We’ll see how the rest of the week goes. If they’ll forgive a Kindergarten Sinner like me. If I can redeem myself with cheese crackers and cheese puffs. Maybe cheese puffs in bulk. I’ll show up those other moms, I’ll shop at the discount warehouse for my snacks!! And I’ll BUY some film just to get the plastic film container! OK, maybe not that. Maybe we’ll look some more and if we can’t find it, we’ll just have to ‘fess up.
*sigh*, this kindergarten stuff is harder than it seems.
At least for this mom, it is!
Maybe I don’t want to go back to kindergarten, after all. So there!! NYAH!! :P”””””””””””””’
