The other shoe didn’t just drop, it fell on my head.

Remember just last week when I was bragging about my daughter the smartypants? Yeah, apparently karma got the memo and laughed in my face because BOY, AM I STUPID for writing about it out loud. Um, so to speak.

See, I was all basking in the glow of My Daughter is Speshul! when I picked up the girls from school last Thursday. It was (almost) the end of a very crappy, very draining week and I was looking forward to having a night of relaxing with the girls. I was going to treat them to pizza, eat in our pajamas, in the living room, in front of the TV. I needed to relax that badly. And then Gracie handed me an envelope from her school when I picked her up from daycare. I read it in the car while everyone was buckling up. Her teacher had informally let me know that Gracie was asked to test for the Gifted & Talented Program and I figured this was just the official letter.

Except it wasn’t so much telling me that Gracie was awesome as much as it was notifying me that my kid was failing gym.

After I picked my jaw up of the floor of my jeepy jeepy, I read the letter again to see if I could actually take in something other than Failing! And Gym! What I found wasn’t helping my sense of incredulity very much. Apparently, my daughter was failing gym because of classwork (in gym? What, are there worksheets?), and wasting time, and because her behavior was consistently at unacceptable levels. I actually double-checked that the last category was really the one that was checked off because that is just not Gracie. But darnit, I was mostly mad because I couldn’t have Pizza & Pajama night if my kid was failing a class.

The kid was resigned to having A Talk when we got home, but she took it like a trooper until I explained what it meant that she was failing a class, and why she was supposedly failing. Then, well, we both talked it out and we both ended up confused. Lemme break it down for ya:

Evidence the letter might be dead-on:

• I know my children aren’t angels. For one, it just isn’t in their DNA. (Ahem.) Secondly, hellllooooo – did you forget that I just spent four straight days locked up with them because of an ice storm? That’s an awfully painful reminder of just how human they are.
• I know Gracie dawdles – the kid basically has one speed – so I understood why she might waste some time in class. If she wasn’t, I’d be a little miffed that she was basically putting one over on me all these years. And if that was the case, exactly HOW did they make her move faster, for the love of Pete? Turns out, they don’t have any more answers than I do. Sadcakes.
• Acting out occasionally? Um, DUH! Hello, welcome to the land of MY CHILD IS SEVEN YEARS OLD! (Almost.) She is going to act goofy and sometimes yell and sometimes not stand in a straight line with her classmates! Gracie is particularly prone to being a follower if she’s in a less-structured environment (like, say, gym class) where she feels more invisible. And have I mentioned that her gym class has almost 80 students in it? I’m surprised the teacher has time to send out letters by name as opposed to prisoner student number.

 

Reasons I think my daughter might not be who they think she is:

• As much as I know Gracie can be a giant, very loud goofyhead, she is much afraid of disappointing authority figures. So I couldn’t really buy into the ‘unacceptable behavior’ bit. Yes, Gracie will act out. But as her regular teacher confirmed when I talked to her about the situations, when you call Gracie out, she falls back into her normal do-gooder self. Otherwise I whip her with noodles. (KIDDING!)
• Um, you saw the bit where there are 80 kids in her class, right? There is a chance the gym teacher confused her with someone else. Five bucks says he doesn’t even know who she is, as horrible as that would be.
• Gracie confesses. She’ll sing faster than a jail bird. It’s one of the things I love best about her! (In my devious mom way, of course.) When I talked to Gracie about the letter and quizzed her down about what she might have done and whether she had done x, y, or z, she wasn’t upset or defensive – she was bewildered.

 

The bewilderment sealed it for me – she didn’t do it. (Miss Marple got nothin’ on me. Heh.)  But I couldn’t tell Gracie that. I had a role to play. Lessons to teach. Teaching her that it was okay to slack off on gym class wasn’t one of them. I mean, if I taught her that she could slack on some things in life, what in the world would she learn during college? I mean, seriously.

So I told Gracie that I would talk to Coach E. and see what the dealio was. Gracie forgot she was only almost-seven and responded with tears and sobs and reasoned that it wasn’t FAIR and that he was the teacher and could just lie and she couldn’t do anything about it. I hugged her and patted her back and tried to beat the jaded 16-year-old out of her, without much luck.

Here’s hoping I get this resolved and soon. I kinda sorta told Gracie that she can’t have friends over on school nights and told her no more Mrs. Lax Mom when it comes to no TV on school nights and – oh yeah – bedtime has been moved back thirty minutes until she fixes her behavior in gym class. Well, I couldn’t have Gracie think failing a class is okay, now could I?! But this is rotten, having to punish a child you truly believe is probably not guilty, just because you’re the mom and it’s your job.

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