There's Never A Hole To Crawl Into When You Need One

Kyra's 1st grade teacher came over for a home visit this afternoon. Now there's kind of a neat/weird tension to the teacher home visit. On the one hand, it's cool that the teachers would want to come over and spend time with your child in their home environment. And on the other, you can't help but feel that they're checking up on you, gaging your competence as a parent, host, housekeeper, and digging for any dirt they can find. Well, with blabber-mouth Kyra around, teachers can leave their shovels at home. She'll gladly volunteer any juicy tidbits of information they might secretly crave.

The home visit started innocently enough. Kyra showed her teacher her room, then brought out a couple of games to play. While they played Disney DVD Bingo, I helped Kailey with her homework. When Kailey finished her homework, I let her join them while I sat down with a book and nervously waited for the visit to end.

Kyra gave her teacher the delayed tour of the house, ending in the den where the computer and my guitars are. "My dad plays the guitar. Sometimes he plays and I sing. We're working on a Hannah Montana song. And this one's a ROCKER guitar!" she explained. "Oooh," her teacher responded, feigning interest. I rolled my eyes and prayed for the visit to end. It didn't.

They sat down to play one last game, and the dam opened up: "My Dad likes beer."

My eyes bulged out of their sockets and I almost dropped my book while I simultaneously choked on my own spit. Now what Kyra said is true: I do, in fact, like beer. But I was concerned by how this information might be misconstrued by her teacher. Some people like beer so much that they drink lots, and lots, and lots of it, sometimes in a single sitting. I'm much more of a moderate, one and done type of beer drinker. Sometimes I'll admittedly go a little crazy though, and have two. My attention was now completely focused on the discussion in the other room.

"Yeah, I try to tell him that beer is AL-CA-HOL, but he just tells me that he has ONLY ONE during dinner. But this one time during dinner he said to Mommy, 'Hey, Hon, grab me another beer!'"

Dear Lord, I promise I'll go to church more often if You'd just MAKE THIS STOP RIGHT NOW!

I looked over into the den where Kyra's back was to me. Her teacher was mercifully sitting across from her and out of my line of site. However, as I stared at Kyra's back and mentally willed her to SHUT UP, I saw her teacher's head slowly leaning in to sneak a peak at me in the other room. Thankfully there was a smile spread across her face, and I knew that everything would be OK. I grinned and gave her a nervous wave before she returned to the game with Kyra.

Now if I could only get her out the door before Kyra tells her I shout "BARKING SPIDERS" when I fart.