Of God and Elephants

So it's Parent's Evening time again!

Yipee (said through gritted teeth).

The verdict on Second Son (officially 'the youngest child in the school') is that he's err young (funny that!) and 'as I am sure you are aware, ho ho, filled with devilment'.

Well, I can't argue with that.  And neither can the cats, the neighbours, his brother, his father, my mum's dog and just about anything else with a heartbeat that's ever met him.  He woke me up the other morning by informing me that jellyfish were about to attack so he needed some vinegar NOW for their stings 'GET IT NOW MUMMY!' and then proceeded to hold a cat hostage with a plastic T-Rex, refusing to release it until it uttered the password 'WHAT IS MIAOW!'.  He keeps hiding his coat at school so they can't put him in it and if someone annoys him he pushes them into a bush.  He's the kind of child who, once upon a time, slightly horrified me.  I was going to be the mother who spent time reading Ladybird books, painting Beatrix Potter clay animals and going pony riding. If I had a girl I was going to buy her one of those beautiful wool coats with the velvet collars you always see young Royals wearing on Christmas Day  Ha! Who was I kidding.  Nobody would have actually sent a child like that to live with me.  They were going to send me a child who runs around with no pants on covered in neon marker pen whilst pogoing off the furniture screeching and trying to lasso cats.

And they were also going to send me his brother.  You know, just in case I wanted to spend eons of time discussing freight transit and whether or not it would be possible to drive to 'Crick' (which is apparently in Northamptonshire and home to a large Eddie Stobart lorry depot) after school (to which the answer is a clear and emotionally devestating - NO).  

Original Son, when he's not dreaming of Crick, has produced some marvelous paintings of telegraph poles stretching off into the distance and has informed the class and his teachers that whilst they all might wish for an x-box, pony, Chelsea strip or trip to Disneyland he likes 'wires - just wires'.    My brother wants to take him to Vegas to read the cards.  I think we'd better take the younger one too just in case we need some muscle......

Anyway - the best bit of Parent's Evening is the bit where you get to look at their books and see what they actually do in all those hours trapped in the classroom.  

One time I was treated to a graphic drawing of Snow White's corpse in the 'gLas cofin'.  This time crazy arse second child had drawn a bat, eating a mouse, standing on a dead bat.  I'm not sure of the exact symbolisim here but I'm guess it has something to do with being top of the food train and anevolutionary superior.  I asked his teacher.  She was a clueless as I was.  No they hadn't been studying bats.  Or mice.  Or dead things.  Hmmm.

However it is Original Son's workbooks where the real gems lie.

My particurlary favourite was his RE book.  

On the double page spread where they were meant to write their interpretation of Christianity he had drawn a gravestone and merely written:

'Jesus is dead'

Beneath this the teacher had written......

'This is a a good start'.

Nothing else had ever been written and they'd moved on to Islam.

I'm guessing we're still awaiting the resurrection then?  Maybe he should have stayed til the end of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Even better was the page entitled 'Belief Systems'.

They'd had to draw a spider-gram and in the middle he had written:

I Believe In.....

Around this were his beliefs:

Father Christmas
The tooth fairy
The Easter Bunny
Elves
Pixies
Fairies
God
Elephants

Now THAT is a religion I might just sign up to!

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