Well, no. Let me start over.
According to the Navy, the husbeast is "oppositional". This is, like, official. Diagnosed by a shrink and in medical records and stuff. Officially. Not just that he's an ass pain, but he's such an ass pain, it has An Official Name. Which we kinda knew, but seriously?
I have worried, since I found out I was pregnant, about the Goober inheriting our... less... positive traits, shall we say, and the husbeast's oppositional streak was on that short mental list. (I also hoped she wouldn't get my nose and sinuses. I'm out of luck on that one, too.)
When the husbeast was just a small child, in grade school, there was an occasion (more than one, I'm sure) when the teacher went off on a rant and finished with the unfortunate phrase, "I don't want to hear a peep out of any of you." The husbeast, of course, replied "Peep!" and was summarily dragged out of the room, down to the principal's office, and paddled.
We grew up in a small town (I didn't live in it, even, but in the farm country outside it). There was only one school district. The husbeast was in the classroom that day with, shall we say, the scions of some well-known families. The story made the rounds. And again. And, even now, we will bump into someone who will tell us that they'd been telling that story over a family meal recently, and laughing so hard they were crying.
Ha ha, isn't that funny. Now. That he's fought through the public school system and the military.
So, for all the laughs (there are more stories), this wasn't really something I wanted my kid to have. (We will not discuss my own blue-collar, unionized, to-the-barricades, up the rebels attitude; that's another post.)
Last week, this happened.
ETA: Okay, okay! Full disclosure. This was on a homework assignment that I thought a ridiculously big deal was made over. I was required to sign it to show it hadn't been finished in the classroom. (When you were in elementary school, wasn't that standard 'punishment' for fooling around and not getting your work done? Having to do it at home?)
So I signed it. Sideways, along the margin.
In pink Crayola marker.
Maybe we have a bigger problem, here.
10 comments:
Can I just say... I love you guys! :-D
I must say that she DID follow directions... she didn't write, she drew! Huge difference.
Sometimes your stories remind me of our own home on a regular basis.
I was thinking the same thing, "she didn't actually write in the space".
Oppositional Defiant Disorder. It's a thing. We battle the ADD in our house. WiPs of all shapes and sizes in the wood shop and on the daughter's loom. It's too bad we don't get to choose what we get to pass onto our kids.
So she's a bright, funny, wonderful human being who marches to her own drummer. Sounds like a winning combination to me :-)
Oh, I loved this post! I've never been that brave, but I've certainly fantasized about it.
Your sprig is a delight! BTW, have you ever filled in the "sex" box on a form with yes? Lets just say my parents about had hernias trying not to laugh in front of the not amused school admin. We are a warped family that way- and we love it. Kudos to you and sproglet for highly refined senses of humor... A sign of giftedness if that interests you.
Thank god for people who write in the "do not write here" spaces. They (we?) keep the world from dying of boredom.
Kindred spirits, huh? I also write on pages"left intentionally blank". My children remember with horror the time I sent a note back to the middle school science teacher with the mistakes circled in red ink.
Hang in there...
If humanity is going to thrive, we need millions like the goob, and far fewer people like the average school executive. Most of them that i dealt with while raising a high-iq kid with adhhhhd, dyslexia, dysgraphia, partial hearing loss and emotional issues from trauma in his birth home saw everything BUT the high iq and viewed him as a throwaway and me as a pain in the ass who was way up denial. Luckily for the goob, she's git mama and papa bear.
Love you, love the Goob, love the husbeast (Mr. Samurai Knitter!)
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