It's Good to Be King

Wednesday was a big day for the boy. Not only is he Citizen of the Week in his class (hence the crown because being the citizen warrants a crown, naturally) this week, but today was his first awards assembly.

Yes, yes, this is the same awards assembly I ranted about earlier. Being the self-centered mom and exercise addict that I am, I dropped my kid off 20 minutes early and made him walk all by himself from the back drop-off circle all the way to the front of the school in the relative dark at 7 a.m. (he complained later that he had no one to talk to--major bummer for him) just so that I could get my full work out in--including my slowly-becoming-the-standard 10 miles on the treadmill before I needed to present myself, freshly showered and well-attired for the assembly in the cafeteria. To say that the slacks I was wearing put me in the "Severely Overdressed" category is an understatement. Oh well, with an extended family whose idea of formal attire is a dry-cleaned pair of Wranglers and polished cowboy boots sans bovine dung, I'm used to being overdressed.

So did the boy win anything? Eh, he got the standard Spirit Award (today's self-esteem-building equivalent of yesteryear's participation certificate), an award for being fight-free the entire first semester (he's a yakker and a wiggle worm, but my kid isn't a brawler) and an award for having perfect attendance during the first six weeks of school. In short, he got three largely meaningless pieces of colored paper. But oh well, I was there, he seemed genuinely happy to have a parent present and I got a few snaps of him crowned as he was.

Just about an hour after I left (the assembly lasted a merciful 20 minutes), I returned to the school, this time with the husband and two Subway foot-longs. The boy's teacher asks that the Citizen of the Week's parent(s) try to eat lunch with the Citizen of the Week, and originally the plan involved only the husband dining with the boy. But the boy asked me to join him and Daddy, so I did. And the boy got to invite one of his classmates to join him, which is a special privilege given to kids who have an adult guest joining them for lunch.

Surprisingly, the boy did not devour his entire foot-long turkey and shredded cheese and mayo (Daddy ordered his son mayo, which the boy thinks is the ultimate in special, since lunch was a bit special--remember, the boy's crowned) sandwich as he often does. I think he was just a bit overwhelmed by his parents, his friend and his Cheetos to pack it in. But he did eat ever bit of turkey, cheese and mayo.

(Mum, if you're reading this post, do know that I put wholly blame you and Dad for the boy's fascination and acquired taste for mayo. You introduced him to it. Thank you ever so kindly.)

After lunch, which was a trippy experience for me since the elementary cafeteria is equipped with one of those asinine noise traffic light monitors that I had the utmost pleasure of dealing with in the last few years of my incarceration at the local elementary school back home, the husband and I accompanied the boy back to his classroom so we could see his pictures and description of himself on the Citizen of the Week bulletin board. I was honestly surprised by his answer about his favorite food (tortilla soup--he'd told me earlier he was going to say bulgolgi), and I'm quite proud of his answer about what he wants to be when he grows up. Like overachiever mom, like overachiever son?