Part 1
No disrespect to you, Mr. C.S. In fact, ALL respect as I piggy back on your title. You see, sir, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe were a gateway drug to my writing bent, thanks in part to my childhood librarian Sister Summers (yes, that is her name, and it is iconic as she is), and to the Holy Spirit that inspired your writing.
I’m back teaching kindergarten, but most of you know that as you preciously question how I’m (we’re) doing, and the care you’ve shown us has been nothing short of divine. I’m serious.
We’re good. Sort of. Some of us.
While the adjustment has felt like that of a springing forward as to a falling back, like a thunderstorm as opposed to a light summer rain, like a hernia vs. a hemorrhoid… IT’S BEEN GOOD. WE ARE ALL LEARNING LOTS OF THINGS AND IT IS GOOD.
While my darling, patient, ever-enduring, for-better-or-for-worse husband is discovering that my years “at home” weren’t just workouts and loungewear, and my children are learning that it’s not magic that clean laundry reappears in closets overnight, and the dog learns to hold it until, well, he gets thought about, I’M the one that’s being educated. My lands.
I’m not old y’all. At least in theory. Or in my head. Put me in Athens, GA at the hippest hangout in town at 8:00 P.M. (HAAA) and I think I belong. Like I am one of them! I’m young! I’m fun! Sure, your cute outfit doesn’t include Spanx and perhaps wasn’t purchased at Target and your makeup isn’t undergirded by primer, but I’m WITH IT. I am! I’ve learned to “make it” in this world.
I thought.
These kindergartners y’all. They are teaching me more than I may impart to them. I even own a kindergartner of my own, but Jeez Louise. I don’t know NUTTIN’.
Take for instance the word “boo-boo.”
This past week, there was a small occurrence when boo-boo appeared on a shoe. It was heralded at me through the most precious voice,
“There’s boo-boo on my shoe, Mrs. Parrish!!” and there I was looking … looking like Yogi Bear for a picnic basket. Like surely the Yogi Bear’s sidekick was emblazoned on the side of a Target-brand shoe kind of looking… perhaps the 90’s wear making a comeback with the kids, ya know? A cute little Booboo embroidery wielding a pic-a-nic-a basket with a Yogi next to him…I mean… that’s a sneaker I can get behind.
But NO, y’all.
Boo boo now means poop.
And I thought I was smarter than the a-ver-age bear.
The smell alone should have alerted me that there was no picnic basket with this boo boo. Unless it was filled with aged Muenster, some Bleu cheese, and a rotten egg or two.
Y’all. What do you do when you run in to unexpected poop? Get a stick to wipe it off? A water hose? Febreeze?
I chose the school secretary and office manager, which are the heart beat of our school. THEY KNOW WHAT TO DO, right?
And they did. They knew how to resuscitate this situation. With Febreeze, a water hose (they wished), and a stick to beat me.
(They’re angels. They literally had gotten lunch delivered just prior to my own special delivery. Nothing screams appetite inducer like boo boo on a shoe.)
But y’all, I wasn’t ready for this lesson. And not because I’ve not seen poop places other than it should: i.e., toilets, beside trees, diapers, etc. I’ve raised three kids. I’m LITERALLY NOT SCARED.
But this. This.
My Dad has called me Boo Boo ever since my brain can remember. And while I always thought of it as this precious, endearing, loving nickname of his little brown haired, blue eyed sidekick who would wipe boogers on his jeans, eat the cucumbers off his salad, and who he would surprise with a treat often, I now realize he was really calling me “little stinky” or “poophead.”
And I’m not sure how I feel about that.
(Please know I know exactly how I feel about this and I’ll take my Daddy’s meaning of BooBoo any day of the week. Though I do know I had my fair share of times where being called a “Shitthead” would have been more than appropriate and probably still will…though I’m trying to be smarter than the av-er-age bear!)
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