After all that school speech hubbub, Rollie came home from school and didn’t say a thing about it. I didn’t ask, because I knew Todd would want to hear what he had to say about it, too, and you don’t ask a six-year-old what happened at school that day more than once and expect to live. You would die a slow, eye-rolling, sighing death, petulant death.
So, I held off until we sat down to dinner. (Yes, despite my being less-than-traditional in many ways, we do try to sit down to dinner together. Sometimes it happens.)
Me: “Rollie, did you do anything interesting at school today?”
Rollie: “No.”
Me: “You didn’t get to hear a big speech or anything like that?”
Rollie: “Yeah.”
Me: “Can you elaborate?”
[Rollie rolls his eyes.]
Me: “Who did the speech?”
Rollie: “Barack Obama. He was on TV, but he was really at a school in Arlington, Va.”
Me: [thinking to myself, “well, he must have been paying attention enough to get the President’s locale. . . “] “So, what did you think of the speech?”
Rollie shrugged and gave it a thumbs down.
Me: “Why didn’t you like it?”
Rollie: “It was boring, boring, boring.”
All further attempts at discussing the speech with Rollie were met with adamant resistance.
I am thinking that maybe jason B. was right. The kids didn’t get it at this age. They were bored.
That being said, I think that there must have been some discussion of educational goals at school, because later that night, I overheard this discussion between Rollie and Tiller:
Rollie: “Tiller are you going to college?”
Tiller: “No! I don’t want to go to college! I want to stay here with mama and Daddy!”
While this is disappointing in some respects, I would probably be okay with this. As long as I can make her wear footie PJs and silky nighties with strawberries all over them, and cuddle on the couch, forever and ever.