Promoting Chaos

Today was my oldest daughter's Middle School Promotion Day. Actually it was the last day of class for all of Saint Ann School. It was a short day. Mass started at 8:15 and school was dismissed at 10 AM. The hour in between the end of Mass and dismissal was filled by most classes with parties, celebrations and goodbyes. Our twin's third grade class had a video presentation of pictures from the school year.

The 8th grade promotion ceremony started at 10:30. But before that the middle school children were given their report cards. I have been telling my daughter all year that she would not be moving on to high school next year because I had bribed her math and science teacher to fail her at the end of the year.

When the teacher handed out the envelopes with the students report cards in them she told them to give the envelopes to their parents. My daugher walked out the door with her envelope and then came running back in a minute later demanding to know where her real reportcard was. It seems she opened her envelope and found a report card with F's in Math, Science, Religion and PE. Under fourth quarter comments it said "It is recommended that Chaos repeat 8th grade because she will be missed if she goes to high school."

Chaos's teacher with a perfectly straight face started lecturing my daughter on the propriety of opening envelopes that are addressed to her parents.

It was the perfect end to a long running gag. Eventually the teacher who had played along with my gag broke down and gave my daughter her real report card. This one had nine A's and one A- on it. In the shameless bragging on my kids department I just want to point out that those 8 A's were obtained on a scale where an A is a 100-97%. An A- is 96-93%. When I went to school an A was 100-90%. The fact that my kid is consistantly scoring above 97% shows that she inherited more than her good looks from her mother.

Then to make the day even better, my daugher won the Language Arts award this year, she also received the Outstanding Academic Achievement Award, and the Leadership Award. I am very impressed with both of those awards. My dear wife and I are not sure where her leadership qualities came from. Certainly it wasn't from either one of us.

My baby girl also gave the opening speach at the ceremony. Again we don't know where she inherited the ability to stand up and publically speak that way. Both her mother and I would chew our own arms off to get out of situations like that.

The promotion ceremony was followed by a lunch at a local restaurant. We had a wonderful time. My daughter and her classmates got to be the center of attention for much longer than was probably good for them. But what the heck, we don't have to do that again for four more years.

All in all it was a great day. I always knew I had a pretty smart kid on my hands. But to have that fact recognized and announced everyone was terrific.

Finally a personal note, Several members of my volleyball team presented me with a couple gifts. I got a volleyball signed by all the girls on the team and an engraved keyring with a see through digital clock on it. One of my graduating 8th graders also gave me a very nice thank you card. It was very touching. I love having the gifts as reminders of this last season. But the greatest gift I received this year was watching the girls having fun, learning to be better volleyball players and growing as student athletes. The gifts are a wonderful bonus that I will treasure for years. But smiles on my players faces are all the thanks I'll will ever need.

It was a good day today. A busy day, but a good one. A day of tears, smiles, laughs and wonderful memories.