It makes me SICK!

I have to finally admit that I'm proud of my son.

He's done some pretty amazing things that have impressed a lot of people, like reciting the presidents in order when he was just 2 years old or shooting spaghetti out of his nose just last week, but he's finally earned my respect.

I can finally say he's a "chip off the ol' block," not that I can't shoot spaghetti out my nose.

Once a month, my son's great 3rd grade teacher requires her students to memorize a poem to recite to the class. They get graded according to some sort of rubric that takes into account how well they memorize it, if the poem meets the required length, how well they make eye contact while they recite it, how enthusiastically and dramatically they recite it, how little they mumble when they recited it, and how badly they pee their pants while reciting it (deductions here, even if poem is about 'peeing pants.')

We have frequently looked to Ogden Nash, Shel Silverstein, and Dad as sources of comical, clever, rhyming poems for my son's recitational fodder. This time, while I fumbled through several 60-word poems about Abraham Lincoln, my son decided to take the poetic pen into his own hands and create his own masterpiece which he could recite.

I have to say this time, he trumped me. Although he can rhyme "Lincoln" as effectively as I can, he circumvented the whole presidential thing and successfully flowed about something closer to home for him. He even wrote in faster than I wrote my amazingly comical account of Honest Abe's "Young Lyceum Speech." It makes me sick and so very proud at the same time.

Although his poem is a ficticious account of the dire circumstances of an epidemic among his academic peers, it's something to laugh about, especially his "punchline" ending (which he though of entirely on his own.)

Here's what my 8-year-old "chip of the ol' block" son wrote and will be reciting in class next week (as soon as he memorizes it.)


My Classmates Are Sick
By Tate Korpi

My classmates are sick,
It’s a good thing I’m not.
These are the diseases
that they say they got.

Manny got the chicken pox,
Tammy got the flu.
Linda got diphtheria,
I don’t know what to do!

Kenny got the measles,
Xavier got a cold.
Sammy’s kind of wheezy,
And Mary’s ill, I’m told.

Herman has tuberculosis,
Benny has a rash.
Edgar has a case of mumps.
And Karen has whiplash.

I’m glad that I’m not sick like them
I guess it’s all okay,
There’s only one thing bad about it all . . .
Today's "class picture" day.