Funny Man

The other day I ran into our sons Spanish teacher.  I didn't introduce myself so much as I said "Watch out for that Lampert kid, he can be a handful!" (Ok, I have to stop here for a minute.  Contrary to popular belief, I do NOT think my children are perfect....that's their grandparents job...lol..no seriously, my next statement is a statement of fact, NOT the biased opinion of a mom).  Our son has been in trouble one time in school for defending himself against a bully.  There was a point in time where I found that I almost had to apologize for having well behaved kids. As I have mentioned before, my parents taught me how to behave, and that everything wasn't automatic, and we just passed that on to our kids. 

So anyway, his teacher looked at me and said "You know him?"  I fessed up that I was in fact his mom.

What the Spanish teacher said next really got me thinking.  He ran his hand in front of his face and, in his broken accent said, "Serious kid.  Serious face."

I was about to reply, "Oh no, you must be talking about someone else," when the teacher turned to my daughter, whom he knows, and said , "Should have known.  Same eyes as your brother."  We get this A LOT in our house, A LOT.  So much so that the kids sort of roll their eyes at it anymore.  But I knew with those words that we were in fact talking about the same boy.

Before I could say anything, my daughter said, "Serious?  My brother???  No WAY!"  But the teacher confirmed that he was in fact as serious as he could be in school.  I could attribute this to the fact that he isn't a big fan of school.  He was a huge fan of the whole homeschool routine when we did it.  Sleep in as late as you want, do your work in two hours a day, etc, etc.  He still makes straight A's, but a fan of school he is not.  He goes for one reason and one reason only...it allows him to train for and play football eight months out of the year. I am convinced this is an inherited family trait passed on from my brother!

There's this magical thing that happens in our house.  At 3:15 on school days, our son turns into Kevin James, his acting hero.  He can act out all of "Here Comes the Boom" and "Zookeeper" (which happen to also be the only two Kevin James movies we have allowed him to watch) . I knew he had never been in real trouble at school, but what I did not realize was that he didn't let any of his teachers even see this hysterically funny side of him.  It saddened me a little bit because this kid has literally kept us cracking up since he was two and I caught him sitting in the middle of the kitchen table holding a chestnut over a lit Yankee candle at Christmas time.

"Oh my gosh son, what on earth are you doing???" I said as I yanked him off the table.

Tell me you can see this response coming from a mile away..."Roastin' chestnuts over a open fire momma!"

And from then on, the laughs have not stopped.

I voiced my concern to the Yankee over what the teacher said..does he hate school so much that he just doesn't want to be his funny self there?  You know, all those useless worry thoughts that just naturally go through a mommas head constantly?  I thought of all of them.

"Let's go with, he know how and when to behave properly."  The Yankee said.

Oh, yes, that makes sense.  Of course, the Yankee always makes logical sense, frustrating really :)

Then I felt blessed.  And I thanked God and I thanked our son when I saw him later that day.  For as much as I would love for him to hone his craft .....the one that he says will someday take him away from us and to Hollywood where he has been determined to go since he was five.....I feel like God must have given us the skills to do something right if this child, who loves so much to make people laugh, just automatically knows not to use the classroom as his audience.

And I don't think I care anymore if people accuse me of thinking our children are perfect.  I know my children aren't perfect because this home is where they get disciplined and I see each and every imperfect step they take. They will mess up in life, a lot probably, but my husband and I have one major responsibility with these kids God has blessed us with and that is to:

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."
[Proverbs 22:6] 

We are trying our best to do what God has called us to do, and no one should ever apologize for that!