HUH? Mediocre What??

So, I was reading some of Mason's homework the other day and I probed him a bit about his plans after high school. We talked and I told him how our assumption is that he will go to college, etc. but I wanted to hear what he was thinking. He's a Freshman now and it's time to start taking this stuff seriously...yada, yada.

About 20 minutes later I get a text from Mason:

R u vicariously livin thru me n the hope that my accomplishments will validate ur mediocre life and n sum way compensate 4 all the opportunities u botched?

HUH?? First of all, he's texting me this??
2nd, where the heck is he??
3rd, I realize that he's on the john and texting me - GROSS!

I wait for him to come out and in that 10...15 minutes try to decide if I'm mad or not. Some but not a lot.
He comes out and I corner him. We have a brief discussion about choices. I do NOT bring up the "mediocre life" thing at this point (which is what got my dander up). A bit later, I tell him that I'm impressed that he knows how to spell "mediocre" and "vicariously".

He says "oh, yeah - I copied that from the Calvin & Hobbes book that I was reading in the bathroom" ... when he sent the text...

DUH! I KNEW that sounded familiar!! I just thought that I'd told MY parents that long ago...

Homecoming

Mr. Mason got all gussied up for his 9th grade Homecoming. NO date...apparently the thing is to just go with a group of friends. Fine by me! He looked very handsome, none the less.

Mason and Justin...no resemblance there at all...

All 3 of my boys

I tried to get him to take me as his date.
I probably still have my Homecoming dress...
I feel really short next to him!

Looking all GQ meets Pottery Barn

He said he had a great time - apparently he even danced :-) It's starting to sink in that my kid is in High School. Zoinks!! (yes, we watch Scooby Doo about 12 times a day around here).

Parent letter for a teacher

Mason's English teacher gave the parents an assignment - write her a letter about our kid...this was ours.

Mason J. parent letter…

Mason, Mason, Mason…hmm…he is the oldest of 3 children. He has a sister that is 6 years old and in 1^st grade at (DC) and a brother that is 3 years old and in preschool at (AD). We thought for a long time that he’d be an only child but we’re glad that he’s not because he’s a great big brother (though he appears to really love to annoy his younger siblings).

Mason is a kid with a good sense of humor and a good heart. Sometimes he will go overboard with the humor (at least at home!) but will go out of his way to help, to play with the neighbor kids, to tend to animals (ours and others) and he loves our dog, Zoe and kitten, Cleo.

We learned around 2^nd grade that Mason appears to be an auditory learner. He’d learn how to do his spelling words when we’d practice with him in the tub and ask him to spell it out verbally versus having him sit and write it out (which he hated and didn’t seem to learn as much from). He is a great reader and likes to read fiction books (though he will deny that he likes to “read” because he doesn’t think it is “cool”). He’s read all the Harry Potter books, the Twilight series and some Stephen King too. He tends to excel at science. English, on the other hand, is not his best subject - especially writing. He does have a creative mind and when he does write – creates some very interesting stories.

Mason is a POKEY child! When he was making the transition from his 2^nd year of preschool to Kindergarten, his teacher’s only concern was that he is “a pokey child”. He’s unorganized a great deal of the time (as are his parents…), but he is very bright and has done very well in school so far without much effort.

We want to encourage him to understand that high school is different, it takes effort…lots. We want to see that he is putting forth the effort and we want to encourage him to be involved in many different activities to discover his interests in life. Our goal this year is to help him do better with his organizational skills, and encourage him to put more effort into school and to commit to exploring different activities.

One last thing – as a kid, Mason LOVED Batman…to the point that he wouldn’t go out of the house without his mask and cape…

Her response: I LOVE the picture!!! It made my heart just melt.
(mine too...)