Bad Boy, Bad Boy What You Gonna do When Panda Police Come for You?

Said perp on shopping trip to Wal-Mart

 The new school year. Freshly sharpened pencils, crisp binders and the timeout room at the primary school. Around our house it’s affectionately called Panda Prison — or Ling Ling.

Our oldest, now almost 16, had the opposite experience. Starting off in Sally Nunn’s class (then Miss Tamplin), he never moved off Yippee Yellow. By March, I rooted for that clip to jump anywhere other than yellow. Come on son, challenge authority. Don’t go Boo Hoo Blue crazy, but show a teensy smidgen of rebellion.

All those prayers saved up for my other two. Our daughter, now a third grader, made her trip to Ling Ling second day of kindergarten. She didn’t want to stop talking when her teacher asked…several times. 

Child number three brought home a note last week that read, “Your son refused to walk to class today. He had to be escorted to the timeout room.” Timeout room. Code for Panda Penitentiary.

That particular morning trouble started brewing approaching primary carpool drop off. “I want to be homeschooled.”

“Enlighten me son, what does it mean to be homeschooled?”

“Oh, you can stay at home, watch TV and have fun all day.” 

So that’s homeschooling. Maybe I could homeschool myself and receive an advanced degree in post-modern-digital-hip-hop-rap dance movement. 

 As the car crept along, he grabbed his stuffed kitty with his right arm wringing its worn neck while shoving his left thumb in his mouth. Fetal posturing. Big trouble. 

Last year, dropping same child off for PreK at primary school these days would come. Teacher opened car door and instead of grabbing book bag and moving toward the door, my son burrowed into the farthest reaches of the car like a meerkat tunneling deep into the dry Botswanian plain. I would pull over and a gang of lovely Animal Planet wranglers moonlighting as teachers helped pry him from the car. He wrapped those little subterranean digging claws around any surface between him and door. Many days I glanced back to see my child flat on the pavement wrestling four teachers. Like watching an episode of COPS from my rear view mirror, except the perpetrator was my 5 year-old and he still wore a shirt.

Again last week, I pulled over and watched my child being dragged down the pavement. No wrestling. Just a limp dead man’s drag. 

In many ways I understand. I’ve admitted to issues with getting out of the car myself. It’s just dragging oneself across that darned threshold of the unknown. Breaking thresholds of fear, pain, forgiveness seem impossibly hard, but once we find ourselves on the other side; things often are nothing as imagined. We’ve moved forward into wonderful places freeing ourselves of cramped burrows. 

Yes, some day I hope my son will agree, it was better to be pushed in love from security rather than be hauled off by security in the high beams a black and white Crown Vic. Well, let’s all just pray. PLEASE.