Were we surprised when Sara’s Parent Teacher Report stated, “Sara is occasionally the Class Clown”?  No.  You’ve met us.  She got that gene fair and square and from both sides.  I immediately realized that the statement was not printed as a reflection upon her comedic talent.  It meant Sara was cracking jokes when SARA should be working.  Well, she’s in Pre-K, so by “working” I mean, attempting to glue paper pieces into the shape of a cobweb.  Still, work is work, and play is play.

The GOOD part was that her teacher was able to give us an example. Oh yes, she SAVED it.  Let me just say, I love Sara’s teacher.  As the Preschool Director told me last month, “We know every hair on Sara’s head.”  And they love her for all the silly and wild parts that make Sara authentically and uniquely Sara.  They GET Sara, which will be critical to her life’s story.

Her teacher showed us the creepy and cool human skeletons the children had cut out of white paper and glued to large black posters.  They were hung all over the walls, well, except Sara’s.  Her teacher took us to a rolled up black poster sitting on a table.  Apparently Sara, after cutting through a few bones while chatting it up with a girlfriend, did indeed properly cut out her bones.  She then placed them on the black paper in perfect order.  Just hearing that put me in total disbelief.  Sara CUT the bones OUT, and then placed them IN ORDER.  SARA.  MY SARA.  She didn’t glue the arm on the head because she thought it’d be mighty handy to have a hand on your head?  She didn’t put a shoulder on the knee because she thought God accidentally switched those joints anyway?

To which her teacher said, “Ah.  I’m glad to see we have the same Sara at home as we have at school.  You know Sara then.  You won’t be surprised at what I’m about to show you.  After she placed them correctly, we gave her the glue.”  OH.  THE GLUE.  That’s where it ALWAYS GOES AWRY.  I should have sent some kind of note in August.  Give Sara glue at your own peril.  P-E-R-I-L.

Her teacher then unrolled the poster to show us that Sara glued every bone on top of each other, quite deliberately.  She then rolled up the poster, handed it to her teacher and said, “Here you go.  I made you a bag of bones.”

We laughed and laughed and laughed.  And then we laughed.  It’s just so…Sara.  But the end story being, she’s funny, she’s creative, and we all want to preserve these traits.  But when the assignment is: cut out bones, place them in order, and glue them IN ORDER…one should make their best attempt at said assignment.  Or at least by the time actual letter grades are given.  I liked college, but I don’t remember getting graded on, “My Out of The Box Way For Starting that IV.”  For anyone wanting to reply, “But Lori, she’s FOUR.”  Let me just show you the LONG road ahead.  It takes a great deal of time to gently preserve a child’s glitter while teaching them the importance of a shared alphabet.  It took me 4 months to explain to Sara why we can’t just create our own alphabets.  For months, she insisted on signing her name with a symbol that looked somewhat like a “j”.  It was the first letter in her fictional alphabet.  Cute, but hard to read.

So Sara, I love you.  I love your Bag of Bones.  I love that you think this way.  Most of the time.  But kiddo, there are times for laughter, and there are times for listening.  And baby, in the real world, dem’s da bones.