monday was parent/teacher conference day at the monkey’s school. with his seize the clay shenanigans  still weighing heavily on my mind, i folded my limbs into a plastic preschool chair and sat across the table from the monkey’s teachers with but one defense: nothing they could say about this child would shock me. having been to the depths of disastrous public behavior with the monkey on more than one occasion, i am becoming immune to the natural embarrassment one feels when one’s four-year-old turns into a frat boy from the movie animal house. 

but i was wrong. the teachers’ words were shocking. apparently, if gandhi and mother teresa were to have a baby together, one blessed with every ounce of compassion, social awareness, and self direction possessed by his parents, that child would come close to behaving as well as the monkey behaves at school.

the teachers suggested that perhaps the monkey uses up every ounce of his self-control at school, and that home is a place that is comfortable enough for him to let loose. as much as i sometimes wish that the angelic behavior were reserved for me, perhaps it’s better this way. at school, he’s learning how to participate in the order of society and make positive contributions to the community. and at home (and unfortunately in public), he is free to examine the roaring undercurrent of emotions that sweeps through his and all of human experience.

as much as it feels like i am getting the raw end of the deal, i’m glad that the monkey seems to know deep down, that andy and i are the two people in this world who will love him fiercly no matter what.