PERMANENT RECORD

Today, Logan and I attended our second annual parent/teacher conference at Hudson's school. We met with the head of the "Chickadee" class in a private office where she told us how well Hudson is doing with the transition back, how his language skills are improving, and how amazingly his fine and gross motors skills are developing. Best of all, she told us how funny Hudson is. A total character. We were glowing parents, so proud of our boy. We almost made it out with my pride still intact. Almost.

If there's one thing to know about parent/teacher conferences for kids this age, it's that the issues that come up will more often than not be about the parents. Last year, we spent about 5 minutes of the meeting talking about Hudson. The rest of the time, we got scolded for all of the silly, inappropriate, and downright crazy things we'd done at the expense of the other babies. Correction: Logan had done.

BUSTED!

Now, here we were, a year older, clearly none the wiser. We were so close! About to pack up and go. Then Logan offered the teacher $5,000 if she could get Hudson to stop whining within one week. She giggled awkwardly and he immediately upped it to $10,000. Next he said, "If terrorists had your daughter and they wouldn't give her back unless you ranked all of the kids in Hudson's class in order of awesomeness, where would he rank?"

The utmost professional, she managed to change the subject back to the kids. Turns out they're planning a pretty cool theme week. Each day, the kids will learn a new color by cooking food and wearing clothes that match the hue of the day. She mentioned that some of the parents expressed interest in helping out by cooking some of the food. And there it was. The perfect way to end on a high note.

On the tip of my tongue: "Yes! Of course! We'll totally help!"  But before I could get it out, Logan felt compelled to say: "Make sure you don't let Jon Olin and Nicci Micco cook anything... I don't know what they do, but every time I eat their food I get RAGING diarrhea." Totally ridiculous. Totally untrue. Somehow, she found it in her heart to tell us how nice it is when parents have a sense of humor.

Well, at least we have that.