8-25-01, Side Streets, Kimra Traynor Herb, 950 words
Waiting for the Teacher to Call
By Kimra Traynor Herb
IPS Features
As a mother of three boys, I can't sit here and lie to you and say that I have NEVER received a phone call from one of their teachers. There was the time, oh, way back, when my middle son failed both the eye and hearing exam at school, prompting me to quip, when called, "He's Helen Keller?!" (Of course he could hear AND see; he just chose not to answer any questions that day.....)
And then, who
could forget that time when my oldest son's teacher called to tell us that our
son kept "speaking up inappropriately"? Ahhh, memories. But this
week's call..... this week's call from my freshly enrolled kindergarten
student's teacher, well, I am going to go out on a branch and say that I think
it will probably rank always as one of the most memorable.
Of course, my
first thought, when I saw on the caller i.d. the number for the elementary
school, was that my son was: A. hurt horribly, beyond any imagination ( I was
basing this assumption, of course on the incident near the end of last year when
I received the call that my middle son had been playing football on the asphalt
and had fallen and broken most of his front teeth off), B. sick in some
frightful way C. speaking out inappropriately (he is his brother's brother,
after all) or D. crying for me. Now, I knew that D. was probably a long shot;
this kid has been anxious to go to school since he was two years old, and didn't
even turn back for a final kiss on the first day, but hey, I am a mom, and all
my friends' keep regaling me with stories of THEIR children's angst at being
separated from their mothers.
Anyway, I picked
up the phone with a lot of trepidation because whatever it was, it probably
wasn't good news. Teachers rarely phone you at home just to tell you what a
delight your child has been that day in class. When I
finally got through speaking with the teacher, I was amused, confused, and
wondering what I would find when I arrived at the elementary school to pick up
my son. The story was this: a little girl, who napped on the mat next to my son,
had smuggled a pair of scissors under her dress to nap time.
Once that little
devious mission had been accomplished, she first cut off all the hair she could
reach on her own head, and then...... (horror of horrors) she started in on my
son, before the teacher caught her and made her close her impromptu beauty
salon.
"Why didn't
you just punch her?" My oldest son asked his brother at dinner when we were
reliving the tale. "You don't punch girls, silly."
My little guy answered, his fresh buzz cut shining on his head. (That had been
the upside of the whole ordeal....my son had been begging for a crew cut since
spring and I had repeatedly vetoed until the scissor happy miss had hacked away
so much of his pretty blonde hair that I was left with no choice).
"Why didn't
you tell?" My middle son wondered.
"The
teachers are REALLY tired of people telling all the time." My five year old
sighed. "People are ALWAYS telling on each other." He gave his brother
a disgusted look that said, "no one likes a tattle tale."
"Were you
afraid of her?" My husband asked, gently.
"Dad,"
the recipient of the unwilling haircut replied, "SHE HAD SCISSORS. OF
COURSE I WAS AFRAID OF HER!"
One thing about
my youngest; he pretty much tells it as it is, and I guess he had a good point
there. When faced with a "woman" with a "weapon" do you take
the aggressive tact as his brother had suggested, scream for help as his other
brother had guessed, or just lie there and hope she'd lose interest and run out
of hair before moving on to other body parts? My son said, as he forced down a
green bean (he still is getting used to the idea of eating green foods), "I
told her, 'you had better put those scissors away; you are going to get into
some serious trouble' but she didn't care.... she just kept cutting!"
"Where were
the teachers when this little girl was playing beautician?" My oldest son
wondered, repeating the sentiment that we had all thought, if not expressed,
since hearing about the incident. My son exhaled a deep and
disgusted breath. "There ARE other kids, you know! They were helping some
other kids get their shoes off for nap. Sheesh!"
Apparently, the
little guy was tired of being the subject of scrutinization, as apparently the
teachers had grilled him intensively following the cut as to why he didn't cry
out, or let them know in any way that a Vidal Sassoon moment was about to
happen right there in their kindergarten classroom. For his part, my
kindergarten guy was happy that he had finally received the crew cut he had
requested, and that the little girl had been moved "way to the other side
of the room, far away from the other students" as the teacher had assured
me, repeatedly.
As for me, I am
just relieved that at least that particular phone call did not require any trips
to the emergency room, the dentist, or bone doctor (my oldest once broke a
bone)....... and most of all, I was glad that a little girl that probably once
smuggled scissors under HER dress at naptime, D.J., our local beautician, was
able to work us in on a moment's notice to clean up the results of the incident.