Parent-Teacher Conferences

Yesterday was our first ever parent teacher conference. I was actually really excited. Peter talks to Soren's teacher quite a lot about how he's doing and so I didn't really expect any great surprises. Mostly I was expecting something like:

blah blah blah genius blah blah really sweet. blah blah great kid. blah blah blah joy to be around...

You get the idea.

And more or less it did proceed that way. Then she pulled out few things to show us what he was doing in class. She started with his self portrait:

Um.

Immediately my mind ran to that night where against my better judgement I tried the cry it out method to get Soren to sleep on his own. Now I was reaping the result of that horrific mothering. My kid was crazy!

Or maybe it was because we let him play with bugs too much. That had to be it. Maybe he identified with them more than he did with humans! What had I done!

As I braced myself for the teacher's pronouncement of my child's severe identity issues I heard her say "...and this actually shows some advanced concepts..."

Um, say what?

My kid doesn't think he's a bug? I haven't totally and irrevocably screwed him up yet?

She did explain herself...something about drawing body parts that are attached together and that being pretty good for three. I didn't actually hear much of it. I was just taking a deep sigh of relief, Soren didn't think he was a bug or space alien.

Phew.