First 100 Days of School

I hate all this bullshit about the first 100 days of school. What a totally artificial measure. Maybe it’s used to teach math concepts. Perhaps teachers can work it into their lesson plans and do something pertinent with it. But seriously? It’s just a crock of shit designed to give kids another arts and crafts project and force parents to shell out the big bucks.

Case in point? Sam’s class is all dressing up like their 100 year old selves. HUH? Sam does not get it. He has been told to wear a beard. More on that in a moment. Also, the kids are supposed to walk with a cane. Fuck no. Where would I get a cane to fit my 4 year old without making an inappropriate statement about some very real problems that cause kids to need physical assistance? This isn’t a sensitivity training situation. It’s the exact opposite. He can also wear glasses.  Helllooooo? Scott and I both had glasses in grade school. By the end of the year Caroline is going to have them as well. Why not just suggest a hearing aid? Coz clearly that’s another thing only old people need, right?

About the only thing that he’s supposed to have that mostly old people have is gray hair, and he emphatically rejects that, with the logic that he doesn’t want to look like his grandmother. Yes, that was how he put it. (His grandmothers are both good looking. He meant he didn’t want to look old.)

The beard is the only thing he’s willing to do. Because few of the men in his life have facial hair, it doesn’t occur to him that young men grow these, too. Shh. Let’s not tell him, K? So. To keep him from feeling the outcast, and because I’m doing a lot to humor this school that has taken him on, I went out to buy him a beard. But the only beard I could find came with a gray wig that I know he’ll reject.

Not to mention, the only size available was “adult”. Scott thinks he has a workaround to make the beard fit. But the package makes this young guy look very Moses, and when Sam sees that, he’s liable to reject thew whole thing. And even if he gets over the gray wig color, it’s so scratchy, long, and heavy that he’s going to go into sensory overload as soon as it touches him. SO it’s going to be the beard alone. If that.

Sam is unlikely to wear them and I wasted twenty bucks at Party City. But I am a diligent researcher, and I felt it would be best to illustrate the point. So I sacrificed my dignity (what little remained) and put on the beard and wig for my blogging community.

On me, it’s less Moses, more Jerry Garcia with big boobs.  Who knew?

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Edit: I had to give Jerry a ponytail, but Sam wore the complete ensemble. This morning, he was ALLL about rocking the age thing.