Reason #73 why I’m a bad parent

Greg is in kindergarten and Miss Sally and I went to his parent/teacher conference right before Christmas. We didn’t learn anything that we didn’t already know: he’s a very smart kid and, on occasion, can be a real jerk. Overall was it was a very positive meeting.

Towards the end of the conference, the teacher handed over two sets of missing child identification cards. This is a card that you receive from the contractor that takes the school photos. If your child gets lost, you have a card with the child's photo on it that you can give to the police to help with the search.

In Greg’s case there two sets of photos. When his original class photos were taken, Miss Sally didn’t like the look on Greg’s face and had them shoot re-takes. The teacher gave me both sets of Missing Child cards while we listened to Miss Sally’s explanation of why she didn’t like the frowny look on Greg’s face in the first photo.

Greg frowny :(


Greg happy!

So I interjected, “I think the frowny face works well on the Missing Child cards because your child is probably going to be sad if he is kidnapped and this gives a better representation of what he would look like.”

Both Miss Sally and the teacher stared at me silently for seconds. The teacher broke the silence by gathering all the paperwork together and handing it over with a thanksforcomingin.

For the next conference, I have been directed to not speak.

The Hippy Hippopotamus

I found it!


My grandmother, Melba Loughlin, wrote this song that appeared on the cover of Jack and Jill magazine back in 1952. As a child, our mother would sing it to us. As a parent, I sing it to my kids.

I scanned the cover for me then framed the magazine for my mother. She was delighted that I found it.