“i want to bring DIS show and tell”

“Show and tell” is a big deal to Will.  (Scratch that–to ALL preschoolers.)  The first month we were aware of show and tell, Will he wanted to bring his knuffle bunny.  So I sent him with the knuffle bunny and the two stories about knuffle bunny.  A perfectly good show and tell. A toy plus a book.  I figured the teachers would give me an A+.

The next week he wanted to bring a toy.  We’d just gotten a newsletter saying that show and tell Wednesdays were the day to bring special toys, so we figured it was kosher.  Nic even asked the teacher if Will’s Happy Meal toy was really an okay show and tell, and she said it was fine.

So we had a few weeks where Will would bring a toy to show and tell.  He would usually pick it out days before the actual show and tell day, and it was obviously a big thing to his three year old self.  The highlight of his week.

Then we got a newsletter saying that EDUCATIONAL show and tells that fit their monthly theme were encouraged and just plain toys were not cool.  Educational show and tell is just another way of saying “weekly giant pain in Traci’s ass.”  Now every week if Will wants to bring something, I have to figure out something that is in some way educational, AND related to either the water cycle or fall.  So we’ve been skipping show and tell lately.

Today is Wednesday.  Will asked if he could bring a giant yellow bear for show and tell.  I told him it wasn’t right for show and tell, sorry buddy.  So we get to school and not only does he not have a show and tell, he also is sans his green monster backpack, which I couldn’t find.  The first thing he does is pointedly look at the row of coats and backpacks.

“I don’t have my green monster backpack” he tells me.  “It’s lost.”

Oh the guilt.

I tell him that Daddy and I will find it tonight and he can bring it next time.  He says “Daddy will find it.”  Because clearly his jerk of a mother isn’t going to put it on her priority list.

Then he walks over to the bucket that the teachers keep all the show and tell stuff in.  He looks inside it.  I look inside it.

And what do I see?

TOYS.

THOSE FUCKERS.

“Sorry, buddy.” I whisper.  “We’ll bring a show and tell next week.”  And I stand there while the mix of hope and sadness and curiosity and left-outness on his face is burned into my heart.

And then I contemplate spending the rest of the morning standing outside the room waiting for other parents to show up with non-educational show and tells so I can punch them in the junk.