1st Parent-Teacher Conference

When I heard I was to attend one of these, I was a little surprised. Alina goes to a place for three hours, two days a week. They do projects and songs and things that you'd expect little people to do. It's not really a school. She's only 3, so what would they have to say about her? Was she in trouble? Does she bite kids? Does she draw pictures of Jesus riding a giant phallus?

When we get there, we see all the mildly nervous and somewhat inconvenienced mothers in the waiting room. It's 10AM on a weekday and I'm the only Dad there. Smatterings of kiddie art are strewn about. I imagine what the labels would be were it a gallery. Painted Cheerios On Construction Paper. Pasted Macaroni and Pipe Cleaners on Egg Carton. Our name is called. Oh my! Will she go to Stanford or Vassar?!

We get into the room and the two Magic Garden wannabes whip out this checklist. It's broken out into sections and varying levels of development and they've checked off all the things she can do and left the things she can't do unchecked. They start talking to us about how she's doing, but they've left this checklist just sitting there on the table. So, I'm not really listening to them because I want to see the Scorecard! Give me the Scores and the Stats! I'm a guy. As I was reading upside down I noticed things that she can totally do but were not checked. It was hard for me not to blurt out, "Bullshit! She can jump on one leg! Honey, go over there and show them how you jump on one leg. " Apparently jumping on one leg is a physical milestone. But you'd think that all moves are. Crawling, walking, running, spinning, bicycle kick to your enemy's chin - I need to make my own checklist.