R E S P E C T

School started today. Not that anyone would have known, unless you are a part of the underground information network that is probably available to certain parents in Kansas City. Me, I found the school district website, myself, and bookmarked it, and then I go on there and DIG until I find out when and where my child should be going to school. It's like a conspiracy.

Now, if you've been hanging out around my house, and there's a good 10 of you that have, then you know that the non-stop topic of non-verbal conversation has been "school". R2 wakes up in the morning, signs "school". When that is ignored or thwarted, he signs "hungry" until someone pays attention and then signs "school" some more.

So today was the day and we put on his conformist khaki and white uniform with his rebel "rocker" belt. I had looked the start time up on the website, but no one from the school or the bus barn would answer the phone, since I'm a parent, I guess. So we decided to go for it and see what happened.

Now, he's going into 6th but that's junior high, here. So it's a new school, and there are very large children walking around everywhere, getting yelled at and tucking in their shirts and rolling their eyes and sighing. We were apprehended in the parking lot by a teacher who must have identified R2 as special ed by the fact that he was laughing hysterically and jumping, arms flapping wildly all the way there. We then stood around for a good 20 minutes with the Sped staff, as they cornered young pant-saggers and explained the way it was gonna work to them.

"We take responsibility, young man." "Get used to that bein tucked in because we gonna hold you accountable here, young man." "You gonna learn respect, young man." And the saggers would look kinda sheepish and unzip their drawers and tuck their shirts in, right there, which was kind of a charming way to show that they are still kids. R2 was starting to get concerned about school, school, hungry, school, when they finally let us in the building.

We then sat through a fairly long assembly, where the principal alternately made large Robin Williams movie kind of statements and then offered to pull their disrespectful selves out of the bleachers, and then we went to the classroom, where R2 was the only student present and the teacher seemed a little confused about what exactly she was going to do in there, exactly. "I thought we'd do math stuff over there," she says, waving kind of vaguely toward the front. "And then this is the bathroom." "I have to talk to PT and OT and see what they want to do..." she mutters. After a while, I went home because it was clear that nothing was going to happen today.

So, it might be a boring year for him, if the teacher doesn't think of something to do. One thing's for sure. He will learn respect, and he will keep his shirt tucked IN.