Obstinate &%#! Child!

One of the kids, who shall remain nameless, has been giving us difficulty over things like homework and reading. He's in the 3rd grade, so this shouldn't be a problem yet, but it is. He comes home with lots of assignments, and so when we asked the teacher what the deal was she told us his load would be lighter if he would just do his work in class. It turns out he just wiles the time away staring into space enjoying the show in his head (he once described it as "Video in my head"- not TV-Video. In my day we called it "spacing out"). We, of course, then get to play bad guy and make him do his work. Anyway, back to the story. So we have this big blowup with him- "you're gonna be the BIGGEST 3rd grader next year if you fail and get held back!"; at least, that was the gist of it- there was more yelling. All I can think of is that's how I was and I turned out fine, so I said just that. The look from the wife was withering. I felt just like my son. Only worse. She calmly said ( a little too calmly if you know what I mean...) "You're not as well as you think". Sure, I have issues- focus, attention, a preoccupation with certain things, and so on, but overall I'm pretty damn well.

Anyway. We set up a big powow with the teachers. Turns out they just got the scores back from the latest round of testing. He scored 100% on the math part. Perfect. Didn't miss a thing. They were aghast. So were we. He, for his part, was looking pretty darn smug. He didn't do as well on the language arts part. But the parts he did do were perfect. Again, didn't miss anything. "good show came on" was his explanation. I assume he meant in his head.
Then he does a beautiful report on Spider Monkeys. Awesome. I swore he would fail that because he left his notes at home. I had them in my hand, and his report had the exact same info, and then some. I thought he was spacing out while we were surfing the web for info, but he knew it all. Even some things I didn't remember at first. Friggin' kid's a genius. Just a bit relaxed, and addicted to his daydreams.

This does not bode well for my retirement. Here is what is in my future: He will get into a great university. One that is really expensive, and probably a top 10 party school as well. He will go there off and on for 7 to 10 years, change majors 3 or four times, and then move home to begin his life. I will pay and pay. And pay.

This scenario, it turns out, is similar to my own history. Only I have 3, perhaps four of these in play. Tomorrow I'll entertain you with my daughter's plans for higher education.

Like they say in prison- Payback is a b***h.