My Son the Bat.

Everyone wants their kids to be special. Special in a way that leaves the other kids in the dust. Not that we'd say that out loud of course but we want the rush of watching our kid finish the race first, or write something in class (or anywhere apart from a wall for that matter), that leaves us beaming with pride. We do not want our children to be special in the other sense of the word. The kind of special that makes us aware that other parents glance sidewards at us.

Recently we got Zac's report home from his pre-primary class. He's five.



















It's possibly a little hard to read, double click on it and you can read it for yourself. If you can't be bothered it essentially breaks down as such:

Creates a recognizable person: partially achieved

Includes a body, head arms, legs and facial features in their picture: partially achieved

Adds extra features to their portrait: Not yet evident

Uses a variety of colours in their portrait to distinguish features: Not yet evident.

So what precisely did my son draw when he was asked to create a self portrait?









Teacher's comment: Zac has drawn himself as a bat with his eyes closed.

Teacher is fairly certain Zac is autistic.

We suspect he is anti authoritarian.

Draw a picture of myself?! Noooooooo.... that's boring. No we really need a picture of a bat with his eyes closed.

I asked Zac why the bat's eyes were closed. Zac looked at me as if I was insane. "Because the sun is up."

I thought that showed some sort of intelligence. Bet the other kids didn't draw their self portrait depicting themselves with their eyes closed.

And hello to Emma who must start her own blog and Max who must also bite the bullet and start her own blog.... way to cool for anonymity these two. And they sell wine and are forced to listen to diabolically bad music. Cept Sting... I'm exempting Sting from that. And maybe a tiny bit of Wendy Matthews. But I can say that cause I love Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse and that balances out the uncoolness. Cept Sting is cool. Love Sting.

Oh, and by the way... there is something wrong with our new dog. His mouth is too big.