The Cuteness Factor

Isn't technology a hoot?  Last night, a few minutes before 9PM, the phone rings.  Nowadays, when we hear the phone ring, if we're in the kitchen we can just glance over at the wall to see which number comes up on the display.  OR...if we're in the living room or the grups' bedroom, we can glance at the TV set to see the name and number as displayed by Optimum Voice.  But I digress.  When I heard the phone, I looked up from my reading to see the name of the second grade teacher displayed on the television screen.  Uh oh.

As luck would have it, my husband picked up the phone.  After a few minutes of what sounded like animated conversation, he walked in and asked, "Is our little darling still in the shower?"  He was.  It wasn't too difficult to hear what happened next, even over the sounds of water.  "Your teacher says you haven't been handing in much homework."  Thunder clap.

Seems our seven-year-old cutie pie has been smiling, shrugging, hiding, ducking, and doing just about anything to avoid direct questions from his teacher...and if we don't know he was assigned the work, we can't check it.  Now, I warned this teacher at the open house on the fourth day of school:  don't let our little con artist con you, as he can be incredibly evasive when he doesn't feel like doing something he should be doing.  When my husband reminded her of this on the phone, he said she giggled like a schoolgirl.  Sigh.  Swoon.  If they don't have a cuteness category on the report cards this year, with its own rubric, they ought to add one just for my son.   Little Mr. Sneaky Pants is now going to have his homework book checked before he leaves the classroom, to make sure all the assignments are making it in there.  And more rigorous checking will be done at home until he is deemed trustworthy.

Can we buzz forward ten years in our imaginations to picture a teenaged Lothario and the effect this will have on his female classmates?  I have only a halfhearted confidence that his forty something teacher will have the resolve to get tougher with him, considering my own daily struggle.  Sigh.  Swoon.