Phoney MOB

I got a call from My Little Pony's school today. It frightened me. First of all, they never call unless he is sick. But this one wasn't from the nurse, it was from his teacher. So I wondered, "What's he crying about?" Because The Pony is very tender-hearted and a bit immature. He will cry at a finger pinched between desks, or at some thoughtless comment. Then I hoped he hadn't soiled his pants or some such real embarrassment. Not that he ever has. But you never know what to expect when the 4th grade teacher calls. I didn't think he was in trouble. The Pony has put his days of being sent to the principal behind him since kindergarten. He's a regular model student now, thought not exactly a student-of-the-month. It appears that getting 'A's and staying out of trouble are not enough to earn that title.

So with some trepidation, I answered the intercom above my head, and agreed to take his teacher's call on Line 1 (which is really Line 2 on the phone in the teacher workroom, go figure, because it has taken me 3 quarters to ascertain that nobody is going to be on the line when I pick up Line 1, or it will be the Elementia counselor requesting a favor from me because I happened to pick up her call, which was no doubt told to someone that it was on Line 2, and they picked up my call and hung up).

Whew! All she wanted was to tell me that she had sent home a paper with The Pony saying that she did not need a conference with me (we've never met--I probably couldn't even pick her out of a police line-up of dwarfs and male prostitutes and those people who grow hair all over their faces and bodies), but that the speech teacher needed me for an IEP meeting (The Pony receives speech services and occupational therapy for fine motor skills--they love him at MAP time, because he is an IEP student, by cracky, and he raises their scores for that subgroup), so could I come over sometime tomorrow? I agreed to 3:45. Which I could have told you without the run-on sentences, I suppose, but they are OH SO MUCH FUN to write in my stream-of-consciousness way.

The #1 son was MOBbed today. That is to say, he was on MOB Squad, which stands for 'Moving Out of the Box', not that anybody puts my boy in a box, mind you, but that a group of handpicked kids stay for MAP practice in the hopes of moving their OH SO CLOSE scores into the next higher category when they take this year's MAP test. For the first time in forever, #1 did not make 'Advanced' in Math last year, so he was included. Last year, since his score WAS 'Advanced', he was left off the MOB Squad, which wounded him deeply, because what Middle School child would not want to get a special invitation to stay after school and play in the gym for 1 hour and have Math practice for 1 hour and get free pizza and soda for the trouble?

That MOB kept me at school until 5:00. I am OH SO GLAD that the school year is almost over.