"Bee-ing" Good.

Gibson brings home a "Bee-havior" report every day from kindergarten. It's a good system, really. Here's how it works: Each of the kids has a bee. If a student is "good", meaning he lives up to the classroom expectations, his bee stays in the hive with all the rest. However, if a student breaks a rule, his bee gets ousted from the protection of the hive. At that time, in order to bring home a smiley face in the Bee-havior report, the rowdy-rule-breaking student must try to win back his place in the hive by proving that he is, indeed, a hard worker and knows the classroom expectations. (I like to imagine that the little worker bee has to grovel to the Queen. He flies into the hive, escorted by the royal-guard-bees and pleads his case..... "Your majesty. I'm sorry for not doing my share of the pollinating and honey-producing..... I can do better, my Queen, if you'll just see fit to give me another chance........... I'll work hard. I promise. Please do not banish me to the net. Perhaps her majesty would like a few extra buckets of honey....?")

If the wayward bee can win back his favor with the Queen, then his previous mis-behavior is expunged from his record, and the little bee brings home a smiley-face in his "Bee-havior Report". However, if he is unable to win back his rightful place in the hive -- let's say, for instance, that he just can't quit talking to his neighboring bees -- then instead of a smiley-face, the number of the classroom rule our little bee has broken is written down in it's place. (Just for the record, Gibson brings home a lot of #2's. That means that he is not "bee-ing a hard worker" because the only thing he's actually working on is wagging his tongue. And, by the way, that roar of laughter you may have just heard is the collective cackling of each and every one of the teachers I ever had in my education career. I imagine that they are all in hysterics over the fact that I am already SO GETTING WHAT I DESERVE. Yes, I can hear you -- even all the way down here in Charlotte.......)

What, you may ask, happens to the little bee who not only can't win back the favor of the hive, but also continues to mis-behave? Well, those poor little bees end up in the "net". It's a sad and lonely place, that net. And if you find yourself wondering if our little bee has been to the net before, I'll tell you that yes, in fact, he has. But that's a story for another time. What I want to tell you about today are all the smiley-faces our little bee has been bringing home. His goal was 2 in a row. And we've gotten there. We've gotten there a couple of times. But last week...........whew-doggies!...........we had a good run on smiley faces. Our little bee had come home with his SEVENTH smiley-face IN A ROW!

"Gibson!" I said to my son, "You are doing amazingly well, and I am so proud of you! I'll tell you what...... If you are able to bring home 10 smiley-faces in a row, I'll take you to Chuck-E-Cheese." Well, if you've known a 6-year-old-boy in your lifetime, you'll know that I'd just promised him the Garden of Eden. So the next morning he left for school determined to get smiley-face number 8. And when he got off the bus in the afternoon, he ran to the house shouting "Mom! Mom!! I got ANOTHER smiley-face!! And you're going to laugh, because my teacher drew a funny smiley-face in pencil! Wait until you see it!" I was thrilled for him, because this, my friends, this was a huge accomplishment.

I dug around in his backpack and pulled out his "Bee-havior Book". And there it was. His pencil-smiley-face. And he was right.....it did make me laugh...........