Before I get to the real post I need to say goodbye to a dear friend. My furnace took it’s last breath this morning. It has been good to me lasting a year longer than the home inspector said it would. Yes, it has caused me some trouble but that is because I took it for granted. I’m sorry to see it go and really, really wish it could have hung on for another month or so.

As you might have noticed I have added advertising to all my blogs, it’s pretty nice I think. Now would be a really good time to advertise with me since I could really use the funds to pay for a new furnace. Okay I’m finished begging.

Thank you, now back to the scheduled program.

I received an official letter from my daughter’s school today. I usually ignore official letters. My daughter is in kindergarten how much official business can there be in the middle of the school year? If anything important were happening I would get a note in her backpack. I don’t read these either but at least I know where they are if I want to find out what is happening in her school.

A few weeks ago I got a note about some dirty little child who had lice. Last week I learned that some child had the audacity to show up to school when he or she had strep throat. I also learned that there was a Girl Scout meeting this past weekend which we missed because I didn’t look in her backpack until this morning.

When my daughter started kindergarten she was told she had to have a backpack, a regular size backpack, and she needed to bring it to school everyday. The only thing that goes in this backpack are homework assignments. Homework assignments for me not her. She is of course still too young for homework. I am not apparently.

The problem with this arrangement is that I am finished with homework. I graduated from homework a long long time ago and I have no intention of starting again. I figured that as long as I have to pay taxes I do not have to do homework. My daughter’s teacher does not agree with me but she is at least beginning to understand this and now calls when she really really needs to let me know about something. Is this fair to all the other parents who willingly do the homework that the teacher has assigned? Of course it is, if they can’t stand up for their right to have ten minutes to themselves free that is their problem not mine.

I wasn’t sure what to do with this official letter at first. It couldn’t be that important since the teacher didn’t call me or send a note (I don’t think she sent a note but I can’t be sure). The official letter must have something to do with the school and not specifically related to my daughter so I figured it was safe to open.

It turns out my daughter took a test last month. I apparently signed a permission slip allowing her to be tested but I don’t remember doing so. Seems my daughter scored outside the norm on this test and they wanted to take a closer look. They sent me a copy of her scores with the explanation. The explanation was in five different languages so it took me a while to make any sense out of the official letter but after reading it several times I gathered that they think my child is smarter than the average bear. That she might be gifted.

I laughed. And then told my son who had just walked in the house. He laughed too. My daughter was still safe at school well out of our laughter reach.

My son asked if I read the letter correctly.

“Are you sure it isn’t a letter to get her on the short bus?”

“No, it says here it’s for the gifted program.”

We both checked the letter again to make sure they had the right name on the letter. That they hadn’t mixed up letters of the special kids with the gifted kids.

Nope. They think my kid has potential.

I still find this incredibly funny. My daughter can’t tie her shoes yet, she can’t even zip up her coat, mostly because it takes a little effort and she would rather not expel any if she doesn’t have to. My daughter can not open the back door to let the dog in, even if it is unlocked. My daughter can not follow simple commands such as “clean up your room and stop twirling the cat by her tail”. She has no concept of time at all even though she constantly tells me “five more minutes” for everything.

I do think my daughter is smart. She has an incredible grasp of the English language and can add and subtract better than I can but that isn’t saying much. She likes to make movies on the video camera. And they are surprisingly good even if they are all about Hannah Montana and Zac Efron who is sooooo dreamy.

In this official letter I was asked to fill out a form and turn it in by Wednesday. As I am filling out this form the phone rings. It’s the official person in charge of the gifted students and she is calling to remind me to fill out the form and get it in by Wednesday. It hasn’t been an hour since the mailman delivered the official letter, I am on top of the matter and yet they still hound me to get my homework done. Obviously they know me now.

My daughter might be gifted but if they have to rely on me to get her to gifted class (it better not be after school or on a weekend) they better just accept that she will have to hang around all the regular kids for the rest of her academic career or at least until she gets her driver’s license.