Fecal Matters

Last night, I was paying bills when J came into the kitchen laughing so hard he had tears streaming down his face. I asked him what was so funny. Words escaped him as he attempted to gasp out an answer, so he simply handed me a small, photo copied book that he had found in R’s backpack.

It was bound neatly at the top by two staples, clearly the work of an adult. The front cover featured two cartoon children, one a boy and one a girl. Above them, the book read My First Day of School By R. R had neatly printed his name on the line provided and colored the pictured children in with crayons.

“What a fun idea,” I thought, making mental note to add it to his box of keepsakes.

I continued to flip through the book. There was a page with a picture of a red schoolhouse. R’s teacher had neatly written the name of his school at the bottom of the page, and again, crayons were his choice of medium. A self-portrait of R followed, and then a page with his teacher’s name, and another page that listed the number of boys and girls in his class.

By this point, I was feeling pretty warm and fuzzy about his upcoming kindergarten experience. With a sentimental smile on my lips, I flipped to the next page, and this is what I saw:

Stunned, I wasn’t sure I had read it correctly the first time, but after looking at the accompanying drawing, there was no doubt about it. It was what I thought it was, and it explained J’s uncontrolled mirth.

After I recovered from my own uncontrolled laughing, crying, gasping fit, (trying to be as silent as possible so R couldn’t hear me from the next room) I went from feeling amused to mortified. Had his teacher seen his all-too-accurate depiction of a pile of feces? Perhaps if she had just seen the drawing, she thought he wanted to learn more about baking bread. However, R had left nothing to chance by carefully printing the word P-O-O-P at the top of the page.

I composed myself, banished J to our bedroom (he can’t keep a straight face when dealing with situations like this to save his life) and sat down to have a chat with the R-man.

ME: “R, I really like this book that you made at school today, but there’s something that I want to talk to you about.”

R: “What?”

ME: (Holding up page in question): “Why did you write that you want to learn more about poop?”

R: “It’s the word I can spell and write the best besides my name.”

ME: “Why did you need to write it out? (Pleading tone enters my voice.) Couldn’t you have just drawn a picture?”

R: “I wanted to make sure everyone knew what it was.”

The conversation ended with us brainstorming (with J’s help) other topics that R would like to learn more about this year (dinosaurs, volcanoes, counting money, and reading) and outlining the only occasions in which “poop” will be an appropriate response to a school assignment in the future (while studying the digestive system or dissecting owl pellets in science class).

Luckily, I think R’s teacher has been working with 5-and-6-year-olds long enough to find a modicum of humor in this situation. The next time I see her though, I will be wondering if the twinkle in her eye has anything to do with the first assignment R did in her classroom. To all of my elementary teacher friends, there is a special place behind the pearly gates for you someday.