THE MARINI FAMILY

WELCOME TO THE CRAZINESS OF OUR LIFE WITH TWO BOYS!

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Principal's Office

So, it was bound to happen, right?  I mean, sooner or later this was going to happen.  When?  We didn't know.  Why? Any one's guess.  But just so you know, and I am sure this is shocking, breaking news to all of you, I have told both boys that if I ever walk into the office and see them sitting there waiting to see the principal, things would get ugly.  Fast. Because let's be honest,  having your mom on campus can be a pain the butt.  Several times over.  I know EVERYTHING that goes down.  I get daily updates about things that happened in class and things that were said in class.  And daily, after school, we have our little talks about why it's not appropriate to say or do certain things in class. Daily.

So again, it wasn't an issue of...IS this ever going to happen?  It was always....WHEN is this going to happen?  It happened a couple of weeks ago.

And before I tell the story, let me tell you the funniest part of this.  All parties that were involved (excluding Ryan) were a little afraid to tell me anything of what went down.  The principal included.  Now, how was Ryan in his behavior towards me?  Like he didn't have a care in the world.

During lunch Ryan dropped his banana (anyone else already seeing where this is going?) on the floor.  As he reached down to pick up the banana, he apparently did not make it standing ALL the way back up, and held his banana somewhere in the region of where you should NOT hold a banana.  In his little show of funny, he failed to see not one, but two cafeteria helpers standing close by watching the entire thing.  Nope, when you are on stage, and people are laughing, common sense never prevails.  As Ms. Tammy goes over to have a talk with him, the principal, Mr. Odell, walks in and she explains what had happened.  He then asks Ryan to meet him in his office.

Now, at this point I have no idea what has taken place, but I do remember seeing Ryan from my classroom window SKIPPING his way to the office and I thought to myself....Hmmmm, that's funny, I wonder why he is headed that way.

When my class gets ready to line up for lunch, one of the other cafeteria helpers comes up to me and said, "We have to tell you what just happened in the cafeteria with Ryan."  And because I am such a mild mannered lady, I have no idea why her voice was shaking as it appeared she was afraid to tell me what had happened.  The minute she said, "We had an incident with Ryan", she actually looked like she felt sorry for him and looked to be changing her mind about telling me.  I said..."Ms. Kim, spill it.  Now.  What did he do??"   After her explanation of what her and Ms. Tammy had seen, and that he had already gone to the principal for a talk, I told her that under no circumstances was he to ever have special treatment and needs to be punished just like every other student.

As I made my way to the staff room for lunch, I popped my head in the Mr. Odell's office and the look on his face was simply...Oh crap, she's here.

I looked at him and said, "Tell me everything."  He then smiled, voice shaking a little (whatever), told me the same story I had heard from the other ladies.  I asked him then what was Ryan's punishment and he just smiled and said, "I told him that it was inappropriate and to not do it again."  I started laughing.  Loud.  Kinda in his face.  Is that wrong?  To laugh at your boss right to his face?  Meh, probably, but he doesn't live with Ryan.  He has no idea that asking him not to do it again nicely is like asking him to do it a thousand more times, just don't be dumb and get caught next time.

I'll spare you the conversation Ryan and I had after school.  I'm not putting any of that in writing.  The only thing I will say is that he said SEVERAL times that he did not do it.  Oh, and his voice was shaking too.

That night when Rich gets home, I tell him that he needs to take Ryan with him to the store so that Ryan can explain what happened, without his brother as the audience.  When they get back, Ryan heads to his room and Rich comes to see me. This is our conversation:

Me:  Can you believe that????
Rich:  He said he didn't do it.
Me:  Well, duh!!
Rich:  I think I believe him.
Me:  (jaw dropped open)  Are you serious?  Rich...you've met Ryan, right?  Rich, 99% of the time if we see him do something with our own eyes and tell him to stop doing it, what does he say?
Rich:  That he wasn't doing it.
Me:  EVEN THOUGH WE SAW HIM DO IT!!
Rich:  But he explained what happened and he said he was just standing up and that he did not have the banana anywhere near that area.
Me:  Rich, he held a banana up to his crotch in front of his friends to get a laugh. Period. End of story.  And can we get back to the point that TWO ADULTS SAW HIM DO IT!!??  Are we those people that take a shady eight year old's account over what an adult said happened???

Ryan's punishment was taking all electronics away from him for the weekend.  Anything that can be plugged in or charged was completely off limits.

When given his punishment, he nodded eagerly.  My guess is he thought the punishment would be much worse than what we decided on, and he was more than accepting of it.

I'm thinking that speaks volumes....