Overall, I think my kids got a decent education. There were bumps along the way and teachers that weren’t the greatest, but that is to be expected.
What I did not expect was the first of those bumps to happen in kindergarten. With my first child, Mae.
And I certainly didn’t expect the teacher to be the source of the issues.
Kindergarten for Mae did not get off to a great start…it seems logical that I would say the nonsense started on the first day of school. But no, it started six to eight weeks before that.
In June, I filled out the paperwork and dropped it off at the Superintendent’s office. All of the kindergarteners had to have some type of screening, so an appointment was made for Mae. We got to the appointment and joined the line of parents and kids waiting.
A secretary handed out paperwork and asked the parents to check to make sure their child’s details were correct.
When the secretary handed me Mae’s paperwork, she stopped to tell me, “Someone spelled Mae’s name weirdly, so we corrected it.”
I looked at the paperwork.
Was her name spelled incorrectly?
Nope!
On the child’s name line, I had written Mae…and it had been changed to May.
I laughed and told the secretary that I had spelled it that way because that is her name. Who spell-checks a child’s school registration form? I mean, seriously?
Seriously?
There are 76 spelling variations of the name Michael. Here are just a few: Michael, Ma’Kyle, Maichael, Mahkell, Maykel, Maikhel, Michoel, Mickele, Mickeal.
And Makayla? There are more than 130 spelling variations, including: Makayla, My’Kayla, M’Kaela, Mika’Ela, Mychaela, Makhayla, Makaiyla, Mikhaella, Mickaylah, Mkayla.
I can see why someone might think some of these are misspellings, but I don’t think I would actually correct the spelling of a child’s name.
On a registration form.
Completed by said child’s parents.
The next time I saw the paperwork, Mae’s name had been “re-corrected” back to May.
Do these people seriously think I don’t know how to spell my child’s name?
I was told that someone had repeatedly spelled Mae’s name wrong and they had corrected it for me. Clearly, from the secretary’s tone of voice, I should have been grateful.
I quickly said, “Thank you for correcting my child’s name!”
Yeah…no, I didn’t.
I looked at her, completely baffled. Had I just entered The Twilight Zone?
I told her I was the person who kept “correcting” the spelling of Mae’s name.
I was the person who originally spelled Mae’s name correctly, and they should stop “fixing” it. Mae is her legal name, and I would appreciate it if we could spell her name correctly on all of her school forms.
Who spells their kid’s name wrong?
And who the heck would correct it?
Once the Mae/May ridiculousness was solved, I thought we had gotten the bumps of kindergarten out of the way…
I know you’ll be shocked, but that is not what happened.
I later learned that Mrs. G., Mae’s kindergarten teacher, was the person who was correcting her name. In hindsight, that probably should have raised a red flag or 40, but it didn’t.
Fast forward a few months. Mae wasn’t a huge fan of Mrs. G., but there didn’t seem to be any issues.
Until I got the note.
The dreaded backpack note.
The note that the teacher needed to speak to me at my earliest possible availability.
So I made the appointment and spent the next 24 hours waiting and worrying.
Finally, I headed to the meeting, arrived at the school, and was seated in the tiniest chair in the world.
Remember Lily Tomlin as Edith Ann, sitting in that enormous chair? Yeah. Think the exact opposite of that. My knees were up near my ears, and the knuckles on my fingers were resting on the floor.
Thankfully, the tiniest chair didn’t have arms. Otherwise, it would still be attached to my rear end.
And the teacher’s chair? She could have fit several more adults in hers.
And if you think that is ridiculous, wait until you hear the reason I was there.
Once I got uncomfortable in my tiniest chair, the teacher proceeded to tell me that Mae had been using inappropriate language and telling her classmates inappropriate stories.
I was shocked by this, as Mrs. G. had reportedly told me May, I mean Mae, was pretty shy in the classroom.
Mrs. G. was a little nervous as she started to tell me what inappropriate things Mae was saying. I looked at her expectantly, and she leaned across the table, whispered, “She’s saying her daddy doesn’t have a uvula,” and then sat back dramatically.
Ummmmm…
Blink, blink.
…
Blink, blink…blink.
Mrs. G., clearly puzzled by my response, felt the need to repeat her dramatic reveal.
Needless to say, repeating the statement did not clear up my confusion.
Fearing this would be a repeat of the Mae/May debacle, I quickly told Mrs. G. that Mae was telling the truth and her dad did not have a uvula. It was removed when Mae was a baby.
I honestly did not know how to respond because I didn’t understand what the issue was.
And then…
It hit me.
I realized Mrs. G. didn’t know what a uvula was.
No one knows everything. I didn’t know what a uvula was until my husband had his removed.
I explained what a uvula was and then, in what I can only guess was a slightly embarrassed and extremely abrupt manner, Mrs. G. stood up and the meeting was over.
It was such an odd situation.
Had Mae come home and said, “Kimmie’s daddy doesn’t have a uvula,” I probably would have asked her what a uvula was. If she didn’t know, we would have looked it up.
At that time, Google was still newish and hadn’t become the all-knowing entity it is today. So it’s likely we would have gone “old school”…
…after I called my mum to figure out how to spell uvula.
I know what a uvula is, and I still think the sentence “My dad has no uvula” sounds intriguing.
I would have run to the, um…dictionary and looked it up.
Right after I figured out how to spell it.
And if I’m being honest, I would have called one of my neighbors, who also had a 5-year-old, and said, “You’ll never guess what Mae told me!”
My point is, I would have used my resources (yes, yes, yes…dictionaries and other gossiping moms are resources) and tried to figure out what a uvula was.
So the idea of escalating this whole situation to a parent meeting? Probably wouldn’t have crossed my mind.
I would love to tell you things improved by the end of the year…but yeah, that’s not possible. Thankfully, I didn’t get another scary backpack note requesting a meeting with Mrs. G.
I can’t even imagine what another meeting would have looked like…and I certainly wasn’t interested in renewing my relationship with the tiniest chair in the world.
And if you want to know what a uvula is and whether or not my little Mae was making dirty comments, you’re welcome to call my mum, ask her how to spell it, find your dusty old dictionary, and look it up. Or I guess you could Google it…after calling my mum.
However you choose to learn what a uvula is, I recommend consulting a reliable source.
Just don’t ask Mrs. G.
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