Friday, June 8, 2012

Excessive and Shameless Parental Bragging

Oh yesterday, sweet yesterday, was a fine day indeed, which I’ve wrapped up in a pretty box to take out and look at when I need to. In the morning I saw my frightened little kindergartener who clung to me and sobbed day after day, week after week, stand tall, proud, confident, and most importantly happy as a clam, graduate elementary school. Not only that, he won an award. J is mini-me, we don’t win awards and none are expected, G wins awards, but lo and behold my slice of sugar pie won a Presidential Academic Achievement Award complete with the signature of our favorite prez and an adorable little souvenir pin.

To win this award you have to score in the top percentile bracket on two or more subjects on the NECAP {our version of the ubiquitous standardized test}. About 12 kids did this and this group did not include mine, no problem, no award expected, we were pleased as punch for the kids that received them. J scored close, higher than I would have expected for one with such a fear of math, but not quite high enough, again, no problem, I’m already proud as can be. But then about four more kids got the award by being nominated by their teachers, for being close and showing outstanding progress this year and whatever else, blabbity, blah, I blanked out as soon as they called the first name which was the one most familiar to me.

This is just the confidence boost my boy needs and he is so proud. He’s asked if I will have the certificate framed for him, you bet! I cried a little saying goodbye to his teacher who strikes me as a truly special person. This was her first year in the classroom and you’d never know it. Her three kids are up and out and she went back to school to start a new career and she brought with her magnificent life experience, love and poetry. She was invaluable to both J and I this year and my appreciation knows no bounds. J told her he had the best year ever and it was all because of her. Excepting kindergarten he has loved every year of school and we have both loved every teacher, so this is high praise indeed. There are quite enough pains in the ass out there, they get under our skin and we waste so much time dedicated to how they annoy us, I know I do, it’s easy to forget how utterly outnumbered they are by the truly fabulous.

In the evening was J’s improv classes performance and it was magnificent. All these nutty kids with different strengths, different senses of humor, creating these clever, funny scenes together all off the cuff, spectacular, brave and truly funny. Followed by brownie celebration at the house all of which are gone which is a little shocking. My boys can eat a lot of brownies!

Today we slept crazy late and he’s back to work on a stop motion animation he started the other day and now has a whole summer ahead of him for daycamp and zany projects. J goes to a fabulous camp where you are not required to do any sports at all, he will be doing animation, film-making, improv, fun with duct tape and such while I’m hanging out with my nurse buddies at the hospital.

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