More from the Mind of a 9-year-old

Just had an argument I don't understand. The boy has backpack issues. He came to me with a fancy backpack with a frame and wheels and a collapsing handle. He hated it. He saw the backpack in the trunk of the car where I keep my equipment and kept asking to trade. I didn't want to do that, but as I started picking him up at school I did notice his backpack sort of stuck out, so I finally brought mine in and emptied it. I emptied his pack and stuck my stuff in it. It fit so I traded. He was happy for about 30 seconds. For him that isn't bad. I enrolled him in karate and tonight is his first class. I haven't bought a gi for him, let him get a couple of weeks in and make sure he won't drop out first. So he needed to take a pair of sweat pants and a tshirt with him to change into for class. He did not want to put those in his backpack. It wasn't like I was asking him to carry anything potentially embarrassing like a jock strap and cup or something. He threw a fit. He wanted to stick them in a grocery bag and carry them separate. That might be reasonable except that this boy would forget his feet on the bus if they weren't attached. The backpack is the only thing he don't forget. He would not tell me why he didn't want to put the clothes in the backpack and I go through the backpack pretty much every night and he don't pack until the last minute so I know what's in the backpack when it arrives and leaves here. I finally said, "No clothes in the backpack, no karate." He pouted his way into his room. 30 seconds later he peaked around the corner to see if my grinch-like heart and grown 10 sizes or something, then sulked back. At 6:30 I told him to get a move on it was time for the bus. He sloooowly packed the clothes into a plastic bag and sloooowly put that in the backpack. Then we sulked to the road where he suddenly seemed to forget everything. WTH????




I have a magical hotwheel. It can teleport itself. It apparently teleported from his room to school where it was either lost or traded at recess. It teleported because he would never have taken it to school when he was told not to do that. Then it teleported teleported itself into the teacher's desk drawer. It had to have happened that way because he would never play with it during class and have it confiscated it. And lastly it teleported itself into my dryer where apparently all lost, teleporting hotwheels go to be found.




The boy did another weird thing. This is most definitely a learning experience. They moved him to a different class after the IAP meeting so new teacher. The first teacher and I had already gone through the whole milk break and snacks thing, but the new teacher didn't know it. When I went to the parent teacher thing one thing that come up was that the boy was helping himself to her basket of snacks for the kids that forgot or lost a snack during milk break. Elementary school teachers seem to be kind of awesome like that. Not like icky probation officers who are always grouchy. Anyway, she thought I might not know that I could send a snack with him. "I've been sending 2 every morning, usually either 2 fruit roll ups or a fruit roll up and some other fruit thing." Anyway the munchkin was apparently, I have nothing other than his word for this after intense interrogation and translation, eating one treat on the bus and either giving the other away or trading it for something else. Then scarfing a snack from the teacher. Yesterday when we had the altercation over work out clothes, I forgot the break milk ticket, which he insists is a "fake milk ticket," ran out. So I intended to send $6 with him for a new milk ticket. It worked once. I forgot, so I detoured by the store, made change and drove to the school with the money and 2 fruit rollups. One went into the back seat for pre-karate electrolytes or something, the other and the money I dropped off at the front desk. The very nice woman at the desk located him and passed the money and instruction along to him. In the telephone call afterwords, she said he got an odd look on his face so she asked the janitor to watch him. Bless the man, because he did, even though monitoring insane 9 year-olds probably isn't anywhere in his job description. The boy bought something, later investigation indicates a notepad, at the book store then gave the rest of the money to a friend. Once reported, the Principal managed to straighten it out and get him a milk ticket. I find myself constantly thanking and apologizing to the awesome people at the school.




Started a load of laundry and fished out the bag containing his school clothes he had worn prior to changing into his clothes for karate. The items included a pair of underwear. "You changed underwear to go to karate?" I asked. "Yeah." he answered looking at me like I was nuts.