Our son will be turning 11 next month. How did this happen?!? He is a great kid - he's very creative (he's made some pretty awesome LEGO creatures/structures/weapons :) and throws himself whole-heartedly into whatever he's doing. He's also closing in on puberty (gahhhhh!!!!!!!!!) and is also starting to have more opinions on his personal style. Right now, for instance, he really wants to have longer hair. He came down on Monday morning and announced that this bedhead look was totally awesome, and he was wondering if I could help him gel it this way each day. No, he was not kidding.
Random side note: I love this photo because it's a real smile - I shot a bunch to get one natural grin rather than a goofy "cool" look or a pained grimace.
So back to crazy boy. As he climbed into the car yesterday, he announces he had the worst day ever. This usually means that he got in trouble, so I asked how many tallies he'd received (teacher logs issues, and their total count over the quarter basically determines their rating for behavior). Answer: zero. Hmmm, I'm now confused, so I ask what happened. He wails back: "They have me down as white!"
(Pardon me while I struggle not to erupt in laughter because obviously this is upsetting to him)
Turns out that they'd distributed the standard annual school report with its summary of test scores and EEO breakout. He's quite proud that he's a mix of Italian, German, Slovak and Scandinavian - and I then explained to him that just means our ancestors were from those different areas.. and well, they're all European, which means he's *white*. And he's the only one classified that way in his homeroom (although he pointed out that there are several in his class that "look about as white as me" but still classify themselves as Hispanic even if only Mom or Dad is Mexican). Holy cow, I cannot remember the last time I laughed so hard!
Anyhooo, he'll be going into sixth grade in the fall, and last evening was the orientation at the Middle School. I have to admit that it was boring and frankly uninformative - the highlight was the 3 minute walk-through tour (we were in a group with one of the assistant principals, and she at least had a sense of humor: "And here are our A/C units - oh good, you all ARE paying attention!"). UIL (university interscholastic league) is a big deal down here, and essentially it's competitions between schools in various topics... I had to laugh when I read the handout and saw "Calculator Skills" (it's actually advanced problem solving in math, but they are allowed to use calculators in this portion), and then there are also speaking/drama categories. Including "Spanish Poetry Interpretation" in which "students prepare a piece of... poetry to read out loud (not memorized) in front of an audience. Gestures, voice, and facial expressions will be utilized to bring the story or poem to life." I may have threatened to sign him up for that particular topic if he started misbehaving ;) Seriously, though, he's having a hard time deciding between choir or band, so is planning to take a survey among his friends.
After we endured all the monotone speeches, I took him over to Orange Leaf for Frozen Yogurt. I had a smidgen of sugar free chocolate topped with fresh strawberries. He had, um, - peanut butter swirled with salted caramel, pineapple, and cotton candy yogurts, topped with M&Ms, sprinkles, gummy worms, brownie chunks, and I can't even remember what else. My stomach hurts just looking at that thing! Oh well, it was a fun outing, and we even brought our spoons home for A to use as Barbie shovels :)
No comments:
Post a Comment