A series of unfotunate events

I'd be kicking myself years down the road if I didn't record these embarrassing stories, and so many people have asked me to write them down. (And honestly, I had intentionally NOT written them down for years because I cringe when I think of what my mother would say. But today we were reading aloud as a family from James Herriot's stories, and we take such delight in them. I thought I'd regret not writing down some of our own unfortunate mishaps to laugh about with others.)

Daniel's Kindergarten year of school was one series of rather embarrassing events after another. It all started with a pair of socks. 

As we tried to encourage and teach independence and accountability in our children, I let the boys wear (mostly) what they chose to school. As long as it fit correctly, was clean and free from holes, it was fine. 

One harried morning, I neglected to conduct the morning inspection before sending children off to school. That afternoon, Daniel came home with a package of new socks. When I questioned where they came from, he shrugged and said his teacher gave it to him since we couldn't afford socks. What?! He had a sock drawer literally overflowing with clean, folded socks in great condition. What on earth brought about the assumption we couldn't buy socks?

 I discovered Daniel had chosen to wear very filthy socks to school (these were super-dirty...it looked like he had run though the muddy pasture in just his socks). Heaven knows why he would choose to wear something like that when he had about 30 clean socks in his drawer. I'll never understand little boys. When his teacher commented on the state his socks, he brushed it off by saying we couldn't afford clean socks. During her lunch break, she purchased new socks for him. Oh heavens, how embarrassing that was! Of course I sent a thank you note to the teacher, returned the new socks, and explained the situation to her, assuring her we had more socks than he could fit in his drawer and he just chose not to wear the clean ones that day. 

If only it had stopped there. But it didn't. That year was like a series of dominoes, one embarrassing moment leading to another. 

The next situation involved a little sore on his face. He had a little cut near his mouth, but it wouldn't heal correctly since he had a habit of picking at the sore and reopening the wound. Each afternoon I helped him wash it, cover it with antibiotic ointment, and top it off with a band-aid. But he was self-conscious about wearing the band-aid to school, so it was always removed in the morning right before school. During the slow school hours, Daniel would pick at the sore and it would reopen. So it was that he had this little wound for weeks without any sign of improvement. 

One day he brought home a paper from the school nurse, which instructed me in very patronizing terms how to wash hands with soap and how to do basic care for cuts/wounds so they could heal. It required a signature and a return note verifying I had read the document.  Daniel had told the nurse that he didn't know how to wash his hands. Of course we had taught him how to do this! Yikes, I felt so patronized. You can bet we re-taught the same personal hygiene lessons a million times that month. 

A few weeks later, in the happy morning rush we all love so much as we try to get children dressed/adequately fed/morning prayers said/scriptures read/lunches packed and out the door on time, Daniel told me 5 minutes before departure that his metal lunch box was broken. The little hinges for the lid had bent and would need to be re-hammered in order to fix the problem. Not having enough time to disassemble the lunch box and fix it before school, I told him we'd take care of it that afternoon. We needed a temporary fix to hold the lid shut and prevent his lunch from spilling across the school halls, so I hastily made a large cuff of duct tape to slide over the square lunchbox and hold the lid shut. I even used yellow duct tape that would blend in with the bright red and yellow colors of his Spiderman lunchbox, making our 'repair' less noticeable to his classmates. 

That afternoon, he came home with a brand new lunchbox. His teacher sent one home since we (obviously) were too cash-strapped to own a working lunch box. She wrote his name on the new lunch box with permanent marker, making it nearly impossible to return it without looking absolutely ungrateful. On the one hand, I was touched that his teacher was so observant and cared about her students, but on the other hand, we really didn't need these continuous gifts to be poured on us- especially since school teachers are not known for receiving a generous salary! 

Next came Valentine's Day, that much-anticipated tradition of carefully creating Valentine cards to exchange with school friends. Daniel spent several afternoon laboriously writing each classmate's name on a card, then meticulously stuffed them in beensy envelopes and added festive candy. He was so excited the morning of their school party, and eager to share his gifts with friends. This was a long day when I'd be in another town teaching home school co-op classes with Sarah all day, so we dropped Daniel off at school on our way out of town and picked him up again that afternoon on our way home. 

When we walked in the door, I saw his box of Valentine cards on the dining room table. He stopped short and stared at them, with his mouth hanging open in surprise. He had forgotten to take the cards to school.  I was so sad for him, mentally kicking myself that I hadn't been home that day to notice the missing cards and run them to the school. I gently asked how the party went. He said he just went around pretending to place cards in each classmate's Valentine box. His teacher saw what was happening and gave him lollipops to pass out instead. Add one more tally to the scoreboard of shame I should have felt, but really I was laughing at this point and thinking this was getting pretty ridiculous. All these incidents added together were painting a pretty interesting picture. I wondered briefly what she thought of me- did she think I was a hopeless alcoholic passed out on the couch all day? We never had things like this happen with any other children, and I was surprised so many mishaps were happening with this one child. 

There were more occasions, when he came home with a new outfit or new school supplies, and each time I'd explain to the teacher that there was no lack of these things in our home. Daniel just either forgot to collect his supplies in the morning, or chose to wear his much-loved favorite T-shirts again and again every week even though he had a closet full of nice shirts waiting to be worn.

The incident that took the cake was near the end of the school year. It was a rainy, dreary day. Daniel ran out the door to catch his ride to school with our neighbors, and stopped to collect his backpack from our van. He forgot to close the van door (don't all these stories happen because this sweet child forgot something?) and left it open. 

This was a Monday- Cleaning Day for me. I stayed home, busily addressing dirty rooms and tackling loads of laundry all day. I have a terrible habit of procrastinating until the very last minute, so I'm always ALMOST running late and rushing from one activity to the next. That day was typical, so I rushed to the van to head to school. I met a terribly comical and terribly mortifying sight I'll never forget. 

Through every van window, I could see a multitude of chicken faces looking out at me. My heart sank. We had a flock of over 50 chickens, and they were all taking refuge from the rain in my van. Every. Single. One. Each seat in our van had several chickens perched in a row on the headrests. I opened the driver's side door and was met with the loud crowing of our biggest rooster, who was comically perched on my steering wheel, peering out the windshield. Every seat had dozens of chickens sitting packed tightly together on every horizontal surface. The floor held more hens, feathers fluffed and crouching on the carpet. 

They had spent 6 hours hanging out in my van, walking with muddy feet on every surface and (of course) defecating everywhere like there was no tomorrow. Large piles of wet brown chicken poop marred the leather seats and carpet. Unfortunately some of the birds had some tummy trouble and were evidently being plagued with diarrhea, which was splattered in large puddles here and there like a Jackson Polluck painting. 

Have you ever smelled fresh chicken droppings? Oh it's powerfully horrendous. It's quite potent. The large quantities of poultry poop in such close quarters burned my eyes and made me gag. And guess what? There was no time to do anything about it. Now I was actually running rather late. 

I quickly shooed the birds away (mentally cursing myself for ever thinking free-range chickens were a good idea), and armed myself with a thick stack of newspaper. With no time for anything else, I laid the newspaper over the seats as a protective barrier for myself, and (gritting my teeth) I gingerly sat down. Rolling down all the windows to get some fresh air, I drove the 5 miles to school.

Now imagine this. I'm in the car line at the school, and I pull up to collect my batch of children. Of COURSE it's my luck that the teacher on duty today is Daniel's teacher. I pull into place and open the sliding van door, and (I kid you not) a dozen feathers exit the van and go swirling through the air into the parking lot as the horrendous mess and stench is revealed. I imagined a green cloud of sulfurous fumes blasting out of my van and encircling the poor bystanders. It was impossible to not notice the piles of fecal matter, and I quickly laid newspaper over it while instructing the children to sit very carefully and be very still while we drove to the nearest car wash to clean it all out. His teacher raised an eyebrow at me, the children's mouths hung open, and I blushed bright red while briskly helping them buckle up for the ride. 

We spent a busy afternoon scrubbing, vacuuming, and disinfecting every interior surface of the van (thank goodness for leather interiors! It was SO much easier to clean than fabric! We don't own that van anymore and our current van has regular upholstery- you bet we are VERY careful about closing doors!)

This child has been so often lost in his own little world as the rest of us go by. I wonder what goes on in his head at times, I wonder what adventures are happening in that big imagination that is so distracting from reality. It's infuriating at times, true. It's embarrassing at times, yes. But he's such a wonderful little person. He's so thoughtful of others, and so often the most sympathetic and giving child in our family. 

He loves deeply, and is passionate in his emotions (Which can be good, or bad. Did I ever tell you the story of when Daniel had sticky fingers from eating a sweet pastry, and was convinced he'd die if he couldn't wash them right away? We were on a road trip and had just run out of the wet wipes we usually keep the on hand to clean with. He laid sobbing on the floor with his hands dramatically waving in the air above him as he cried out, "Sticky fingers?! I can't LIVE with sticky fingers!! I'm going to die right now!")

He's a loving child, eager to please and gifted with a special connection with animals. He's such a kind big brother in so many ways, giving his time generously to serve Joseph or read stories to him or build elaborate fancy beds stacked high with a dozen cushions for added comfort while he attentively rubs feet for a loved one.

He's smart, he's musical, he's funny, and so many other things.

He's just so darn forgetful!