Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Morning conversation
Jake is shadowing a 10th Grader today. Right about now, he’s walking from his Period 1 to his Period 2 class.
He wore his little kid shorts and Cal tee shirt. While he was eating his breakfast (ten pepperoni-and-cheese Bagel Bites) . . .
Me: You may get swarmed by a bunch of teenage girls saying, “OOOOOOH! How CUUUUTE!” My advice?
Jake: What?
Me: Enjoy it.
Jake: That is so demeaning.
***
When I stepped out the front door, I cried, “Damn! It smells like I have my head up a horse’s ass!”
He wouldn’t stop laughing and he wouldn’t leave the house until he did stop laughing. He wanted to hold his breath and race out to the car. You know how hard it is to stop laughing when you consciously try to do so?
We still made it to school on time.
But the car interior smelled like a horse’s colon, too.
D.
PS: In the future, we’ll all stay regular with prunes. Ray Bradbury said so. (Hat tip to Lyvvie.)
If he can bypass middle school you’ll have given Jake a precious, beautiful gift. We’re about to start in our third three-year stint of that hell-on-earth and I’d do almost anything (except home-school. Can’t manage that) to avoid that pit of despair.
I never mentioned prunes in any of my stories! What are you trying to pull?
My fingers are crossed hoping Jake has a fabulous day at school. Our youngest child (we have 5 – from 42 to 21) just left to go back to school for his senior year in college. It was as hard emotionally to send him off on the plane as it was to leave him off for his first day at kindergarden. But, you just take a deep breath knowing you’ve done the best you can, and you smile to show him how proud you are and that you truly BELIEVE in him and his abilities to handle whatever may come his way. It’s a bittersweet moment when your child takes another step toward his ultimate goal of independence from you. But I firmly believe that every step you help you child to take toward independence will ultimately lead him back to you. Putting a brick on their head will not stop them from growing up. My mother was very fond of another saying that her grandmother used to tell her. My mother used to remind me of it from time to time when I needed to hear it. “If you love your children, let them go”.
Thanks, y’all.
Things went well. He did indeed get barraged with oh-how-cutes and (unlike me at that age) he did NOT like it. He shadowed a tenth grader and felt like things were too basic for him (okay, I’m bragging. But do I brag that often? I don’t think so!) So if we can get him a challenging curriculum, I think he’ll enjoy himself. Of course, that means he’ll probably be in with even older kids. Sigh.
Just send him to college and be done with this jockeying back and forth crap and shadowing.
As far as the smell… what did I tell you? What? And it is not the fair.
“Damn! It smells like I have my head up a horse’s ass!â€
The field of equine proctology is ever expanding…
Ps yes I know that proctology isn’t what it’s called any more.
CD: in a perfect world, he could be around kids his own age and intellect, but I guess that’s a pipe dream. This seems to be the best compromise for now.
Dean,
Some docs use fiberoptic colonoscopes. I use my head! Now, that’s commitment.