And You Thought Never Sleeping Because Your Newborn Cried All the Time was Hard. Pft.

On Friday afternoon The Child got a letter. It was a horrible letter. It basically said that due to her grades and her many discipline referrals she was on the short list of students under consideration to NOT come back to High School.

WHAT?

OK, we knew her grades weren't the best and summer school was a sure thing but how the H does a kid have multiple discipline referrals and this is the first the parents are hearing of it? The Spouse thought it had to be a mistake and intellectually I did, too, but holy hell! The Child was completely beside herself. (Which was the only good thing because it demonstrated how much she loves being at High School. The thought of not going back devastated her). And of course, since the letter came on Friday afternoon there was nothing we could do but stew about it for 2 days. Which I did. I was a nice juicy pot of mom stew by Monday morning. My heart was so heavy and my brain so buzzy I couldn't think to blog about it yesterday.

I called the school and the principal was in a meeting so I left a voice mail that I hoped didn't sound as freaked out as I felt. Then he didn't call back and I couldn't think straight. Plus, the VA has upgraded to Office 2007 and so my computer was buggy as a summer night in the back garden. (Show of hands: how much are we all hating Office 2007? That's what I thought). So I went shopping. Because I get to shop for work and yesterday was a good day for shopping.

I got back to the office and the phone rang and it was the principal, whose first words were, "I'm so sorry; that letter was a mistake". Thanks be to God. I mean, I knew it had to be but those words were some of the sweetest I've ever heard. We talked about the academic plan for The Child and then he emphasized that she is NOT a discipline problem, on the contrary she is a delightful kid. Then he apologized again very profusely.

I've already had friends who've expressed displeasure that such a mistake could be made. "You'd expect that from a public school," they say, "but not a private one where you're paying tons of money for the privilege of being there". Yeah, maybe. Except even people in private schools make mistakes. Tuition is supposed to guarantee a certain quality of education, not that nothing will ever go wrong with a computer. So I hold no grudges. Stuff happens, they made it right and it's all good. And frankly, it provided the sort of wake up call to The Child that no amount of haranguing from her parents could. Grades do matter. Now that she's had a taste of what it would look like if she doesn't shape up, she's determined to do her best next year. Sometimes you have to learn things like that the hard way. She's very sure she never wants to be in a situation where a letter like that could be the real thing.

Cocktails anyone?