What's Wrong With Your Child?

My mom would take me to my play date groups only to get “what is wrong with your child” looks from all of the other young moms. At the time I must have been about 4 and we were residing in La Paz, Bolivia. On my first day of kindergarten I met my best friend Cristina Shilling or Tinie. From that moment on we were inseparable. Shortly after that we met Jonathan the third addition to our horror group of uncontrollable kinder gardeners. We dedicated our primary years in Bolivia to driving anyone in a five mile radius of us nuts.

I came home from school the second week talking about the “bother boys” on the bus. Like a normal mothers reaction she thought there are boys on the bus that are bullying my daughter. With this theory and worry that high school boys were bothering a kindergartener, she went to the principal’s office. The “bother boys” were indeed boys from high school that Tinie, Jonathan and I would bother on the bus; from throwing yogurt and cookies at them to calling them “stinky poop heads”. My mother left embarrassed again after only the second week of my kindergarten year.  

Tinie and I began to form larger groups amongst the kindergarteners. One in particular was called the kissing girls. The kissing girls had to go out every recess and kiss the soccer boys. My mom hadn’t heard about this until she received a call from Mrs. Bullen. Mrs. Bullen asked if my mom could please get her daughter to stop kissing her son at recess. My mom embarrassed once again proceeded to put me on time-out.