Jack graduated for the second time today in his 6 short years of life. He graduated from preschool last year, which I get; he was at least changing schools. But, today he 'graduated' from Kindergarten. He is going to go to the same elementary school next year. Jack even asked me this morning why his friend Derek (who is in 1st grade) wouldn't be graduating today, he actually thought they would both be in 1st grade next year since Derek didn't "graduate". How can you blame the kid? I am thinking this graduation craziness is along the same lines as not keeping score in baseball and always telling our kids how great they are. When are we going to welcome our kids to the world of reality by letting them know you only graduate from high school and college, someone loses in every baseball game and sometimes you aren't all that great?
The kids had their pictures taken in cap and gown a couple of weeks ago, that's right another marginal photo that I felt obligated to buy. I just hope that he has one of those photo videos at his wedding so everyone will see these pictures someday! So, I assumed that the kids would be wearing the cap and gown in the graduation ceremony. I talked to another friend with a Kindergartener who thought the same thing. I figured he would wear a white shirt, shorts and a decent pair of shoes. But, this morning about 30 minutes before we needed to leave for school Jack informed me that they were not wearing the cap and gown and they couldn't wear jeans or shorts. These words put me into a mad scramble. The kid has grown like crazy and I can't remember the last time I bought him a pair of slacks. I found a pair of khakis that didn't look too short as long as he wore them on his hips. I pulled out a white shirt so his black shoes (the only dress shoes he has that still fit) wouldn't look so bad. When I was nearly done ironing the shirt I found a big spot on the front. Shit! I grabbed a blue shirt and told Jack that he would need to wear his brown cowboy boots. He started melting down! "I can't wear these, we are lined up by height and these boots mess everything up because they make me taller and they itch and they make me walk funny”. Okay, let me see if I can get the spot out of your white shirt so you can wear your black shoes. I got the spot most of the way out of the front, as my mother would say "on a galloping horse nobody will notice". He put the shirt back on and as he walked away I saw another spot on the back of the shirt. Double shit! Now we are running late. I took the shirt off and put the blue shirt back on him. He was now crying again about not wanting to wear the boots. I told him to just put on the black shoes and I would stop and get him a pair of brown shoes to put on before graduation. I dropped him off at school at 8:35 and I could already see the annoying over-achieving parents lining up to get a good seat for the 9:30 graduation. I sped off to Walmart to find the best pair of brown shoes money could buy. They didn't have a thing! All they had were sandals; flip-flops and ugly character tennis shoes for boys. They had an entire aisle of different colors and styles for girls. By the time I got out of Walmart there was no time to get to another store so I headed to the graduation. He ended up looking fine and being better dressed than most of the kids.
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