Tag Archives: School

Love Is In The Air

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Ah, Valentines Day, the most romantic day of the entire calendar year.  If you are spending the holiday with a special someone, you might expect to receive flowers, chocolates or a lovely poem glorifying the ocean-blue of your eyes.

If, however, you are spending the holiday with a child, the gap between what you might expect to receive and what you actually receive can be as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon. Try as they might to come up with heartfelt sentiments of everlasting devotion, a child’s penchant for peculiar vocabulary and unfortunate spelling mishaps make for interesting and, well – weird keepsakes.

Here are a few intriguing examples:


This card, found on Bored Panda, reads: “You are a beautiful human being but I’m not good at drawing human beings so I drew a potato instead. But a very beautiful potato. “

Here is little Brendan getting right to the point and thanking his mother for not starving him to death. Sweet. Found on Pinterest.

In this thoughtful illustration found on Loctrizzle, this lovely princess reminds us that there is nothing more entertaining than innocently insulting the entire family on a holiday.

Miss Pennington told her class that it is nice to point out a person’s best feature when composing tidings of affection. Yikes! Image found on ThoughtCo.

The Award for Most Bizarre Valentine-2019 is bestowed upon this Cryptic Greeting:

The lovely homemade card was given to a third grader by an adoring classmate, and was the source of great concern and bewilderment.

It reads: “Happy Valentines Day. Hope you have a good day. Also, this penis scented banana.”

Okay. A few important questions:

  1. Why does the word “penis” appear in a text written by a third grader?
  2. Why does the word “penis” appear on a valentine’s greeting?
  3. Is this some sort of urban slang term that I am too old to grasp?
  4. Are these lyrics of a greatly disturbing rap song?
  5. What is a “penis scented banana?”
  6. Do I really want to know the answers to these questions?

Understanding alludes me for days, at which time I decide to consult some online scholars for answers. Two learned fellows offer the following explanation of the word “penis” in this text:

“The conceptual penis is better understood not as an anatomical organ but as a social construct isomorphic to performative toxic masculinity. “

-Jamie Lindsay and Peter Boyle

I think it’s safe to assume that the author of this valentine does not intend the above explanation, which leaves me with the same conundrum. What exactly does the young author intend with the use of the phrase, “penis scented banana?”

The answer comes to me while in semi-sleep and jolts me awake with a HUGE sigh of relief. The card is intended to read:

“Happy Valentines day. I hope you have a good day. Also, this PEN IS scented banana.”

And now I can sleep at night without fixating on the corruption of our youth. However, a quote from Aristotle beautifully illustrates today’s life lesson:

“Good Habits formed at youth make all the difference.”

-Aristotle

Life lesson #872:

SPACING MATTERS!

Pre-K is No Place for Sissies

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Upon picking up my two charges from school one hot spring day, I arrive to find the younger child looking as though she has been dragged through the school yard by a team of raging buffalo.  A mere seven hours earlier, I drop off the sparkling child at the very same location with perfectly symmetrical pigtails, a cleanly scrubbed face, freshly pressed clothing, well fed and ready to face the day.  At 3:00pm, however, I barely recognize the dirt encrusted, tornado blown dreary creature that is delivered back to me.

As I am buckling the child into her carseat, we have the following conversation:

Child:  “Nanny, is this the day that means we don’t have to come back to this place tomorrow?”

Nanny:  “Do you mean Friday?  No, sweetheart.  Today is just Tuesday.”

Child:  “Well how many more days until the day when we don’t have to come back here tomorrow?”

Nanny:  “Three more days.”

Child:  (Sighing loudly)  “That’s a lot of days, Nanny.”

Nanny:  “I hear you!” I say conspiratorially.  “Did you have a bad day in Pre-K?”

Child:  “No, not really.”

Nanny:  (gesturing wildly around the child’s head) “What exactly happened in this area?”  Expecting to hear that she has been dragged by the hair around the jungle gym by a hulking first grader, known only as ‘Brutus.

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Go ahead, make my day.

The real story is even more disturbing.

Child:  “Well I was pooping and EVERYTHING just fell out.  But don’t worry,  I fixed it myself.”

Nanny:  (Embracing the “Don’t ask – Don’t tell” policy)  “I see – It sounds like you really did have a tough day.  I completely understand.”

Just then the child’s much older brother, who is already in Kindergarten breaks in with his perspective:

Brother:  “No Nanny, you don’t understand.  Big people don’t get it because they don’t have to go to school all day.  They just get to sit around and do whatever they want.”

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What he thinks I do all day.

 

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What I think I do all day.

Nanny:  (Making the big mistake of trying to use reality on the child)  “Big people have to go to work every single day.  Isn’t that the same thing?”

Brother:  “It’s not the same.  At school we have people bossing us around all the time.  Big people never get bossed around.  This life is just not fair.”

Nanny:  “Wow!  This is worse than I thought.  We better go home and have a double apple juice on-the-rocks.

Child:  “Nanny, do you think I could have a cookie with that?”

Brother:  “Yeah Nanny, cause sometimes apple juice all by itself,  just isn’t enough.”

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