My son didn't want me to come to his second grade Mother's Day Tea.
At first, he told me not to come because "It was stupid."
Next, he said both of us shouldn't go, instead we should spend the morning together at home playing hockey.
When that didn't work, he said I could go, but he was going to be sick that day.
I asked him what was with all of the excuses. I imagined the worst: maybe "Mother's Day Tea" was code for "Parental intervention." Maybe I'd discover that there was a gold engraved plaque bearing his name on the Time Out Chair. Perhaps he hadn't really been going to school at all this year, and was really playing three-card Monte in the park for tourists. With this kid, anything is possible.
Finally, he admitted, "It's just too sad of a song we're singing, okay?"
I wondered what the lyrics could possibly be to elicit such sadness from an 8 year-old boy on Mother's Day. I imagined a medley of The Deer Hunter, and Old Yeller sung a cappella by Joan Crawford. He wouldn't say, so I showed up on the morning of the Tea to a very nervous-looking face. He was on the verge... Continue Reading >> | 
