Friday, November 10, 2006

Random musings about cafeteria food and test anxiety

First of all, this is funny.

Hank didn't feel well after school yesterday. In fact, he fell asleep on the couch watching a Spongebob Squarepants Marathon that he had been anticipating with great excitement for at least a week. Nick Jr. was advertising the 24 hour period beginning yesterday at 7 p.m. as The Best Day Ever!! We had all been singing the little theme song ditty for a week. (The entire Bickerson family enjoys a good Spongebob epi.)

Anyhoo. The Hankster fell asleep on the couch. It could have been the stress of the first spelling test. He told me right after school that he chose not to spell any of the extra credit words.

"I didn't want to do 'em," he said.

I didn't understand that at first because he had mastered them during the week. When he told me more about it he explained that animal was the first extra credit word given by the teacher. He got confused by the n and m and then was unable to proceed with subsequent words. We might have some test anxiety issues. Nuts.

Last night, sleeping on the couch, he felt hot. And looked sad. And didn't want supper. But he woke up this morning chipper and ready to go to school. I told him that if he did not feel well at school that he should tell his teacher and she could call me. He told me he was scared of going to the nurse's office. He would rather sit in class feeling ill than go see the nurse.

I came up with what I thought was a good solution to check on Hank at school today. I could go have lunch with him. I asked him if that would be okay but apparently he is already too cool to have his mother show up at school to eat lunch with him. He's six! But he tried to tell me in a nice way that he didn't want me there cramping his style:
Well Mom I don't think so because it's a lot of extra work for me. I have to introduce you to everybody and tell you where to get the food and where to throw the garbage away...

Big sniff. But I totally understand him. He'll probably tolerate his dad going one time but he knows I've been there and done it already. Once was enough for him. So there's a little milestone come and gone. Thank God he still wants a hug before he gets on the bus in the morning. When that's gone, that'll hurt a little more.

On to other cafeteria stories: I kind of miss eating lunch at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics especially on the days when I could dine with Mr. Bickerson and the cafeteria would be serving Cuban Beans and Rice. It was delicious, yes. But most importantly Mr. B. would always tell the server, "I'll have the Ricky Ricardo, please!!" and that would always make me laugh like hell.

No comments:

Post a Comment