Big Kid's Version

Big Kid's homework last night was to make a collage of his family. It was mostly my homework because I got the photos copied, did the majority of the cutting and gluing and am the only one in the house that truly understands what a collage is, but we attempted a collaborative effort. He picked the photos (and I'm not looking as hot as I'd like in the ones of me, but whatever.)

So today I asked, "Did your teacher like your collage?"

"Yes, she did! She saw Reggie and said 'YOU have a Hedgehog? Dat is so cool!'."

"Cool! What did you say?"

"Dat me and him were friends and he was cool. I also tode her dat I didn't like getting him, but now dat we've got him, I like him very much."

"What do you mean you didn't like getting him? What does that even mean?"

"I tode her how you wouldn't let little kid and I get out of da car to help pick him out, so we waited all alone in da hot car for a long time while you and daddy played wif all da hedgehogs and picked one and how it took such a long time and was so lonely and boring wif dest little kid and me, wantin' out to play wif all da hedgehogs. But when we got him home, I liked him!"

Dammit.

Such a sad story, isn't it? Halfway convincing too, if you only hear half. OF COURSE he left out the part where we met a breeder in a gas station parking lot, peeked in a box, immediately chose one hedgehog, gave her cash, chatted for 2 minutes next to our parked car and then rejoined our children who were safely and comfortably 3 feet from us the whole time.

Instead he painted this tale of being left alone in a parking lot while his parents were frolicking inside for hours with hordes of hedgehogs, oblivious to his boredom, the heat and his curiosity about hedgehogs.

Luckily, at the beginning of the year she mentioned that he was a lot of fun and I agreed and then warned her that he can also be quite dramatic and to take anything he says with a grain of salt and I'll do the same for her. I was hoping to outwit him before he could even start concocting the tale of his negligent mother who is too lazy to pack him a jacket, sends empty lunchboxes to school and leaves him in the parking lot while she goes and has fun.

Now it all comes down to who she believes.