A few weeks ago, a flyer came home in Aitch’s backpack that had a large star traced on it. The top said, “Parent project. Use this star as a tracer. Please keep your star the same size as the tracer. Don’t forget to write why your child is special! Please return no later than.”

My first thought was, what the hell, “parent project”? Why am I getting a project? I’ve already graduated from kindergarten! But the thing looked so random, and as it wasn’t signed by Aitch’s teacher and there was no explanation what it was for and no due date on it, I assumed that it was just one of those optional activities that she sometimes sends along. I tossed it in the trash filed it in the vast archive, organized by topic and date, in which I put all Aitch’s school papers, and I forgot about it.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from Aitch’s teacher asking me to PLEASE send in Aitch’s special star, because all the other kids had THEIR special stars, and Aitch was last, and the entire class cried real salt tears every time they looked at the bulletin board and saw that Aitch’s was missing, etc. I promptly e-mailed her back and asked, what was UP with that special star thing, anyway, because I couldn’t grok the context from the directions.

She fired back that the special star had been mentioned in TWO newsletters AND special detailed directions AND a template, and suggested that if our family had better habits with regard to managing his folder, we wouldn’t continually lose his papers. (She didn’t use the word “continually,” but alluded to the fact that we’ve lost his folder twice. I can hardly believe that doesn’t happen all the time, but the way this has been treated, we seem to be outliers.)

I exercised a great deal of restraint in not replying something like, “Listen, lady, you’re lecturing ME about developing good work habits? Until recently people paid me hundreds of dollars an hour to listen to MY advice on project management.” But I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. She doesn’t know us very well; she probably deals with harried parents all the time; maybe she thought she was being helpful. At any rate, I made a pact with myself when Aitch started school to avoid tangling with his teachers except when Aitch’s health or well-being was at stake. I’ve seen too many parents spend time and energy battling teachers over things that the teachers said or did which, while not ideal, are just part and parcel of being a flawed human being dealing with other flawed beings.

Meanwhile, I got the basics from another parent: It was indeed a parent project, something to do with a unit on teddy bears. We were to decorate a star with words and pictures describing why our child was special to us. Now, I am no slouch when it comes to limning my child’s extraordinary qualities for posterity. I shoot rolls and rolls of Aitch’s precious little face on real old-fashioned film, which I hand-develop in my basement. I’ve put together iMovies of his first years, scored to heartbreaking effect. I’ve written FOUR YEARS worth of blog posts about him, for Christ’s sake. Some people have a baby book; I have a multi-media installation. The one medium that is NOT represented, though, is paper. I can’t cut a straight line. I can’t handwrite a legible sentence. I can’t draw for shit. Why a paper star?

I bought paper and glitter glue and printed out a photo of Aitch small enough to fit on the star. Husband put it together. Early this morning I felt badly that I had not contributed to it, so I put together my own star in PowerPoint, printed it, cut it out (awkwardly), and glued it to the back so Aitch’s star had two sides, one for each parent. I sent it in with his folder.

I’m not sure if the teacher ever got it, though, because she sent me several papers about the star with a test Post-It note: “I thought the directions were very clear? Please read notices thoroughly!” Included was a sheet giving the background explanation for the project, signed by her, with the due date for the project. We had never received it.

Thanks for the scolding, Mrs. Kindergarten. You’re lucky I DON’T have a vast archive of Aitch’s school papers, because if I did, I would be sending a sheaf of them, with grammatical, punctuation, spelling, and usage errors all corrected in red pen, to your principal. Wouldn’t that be special?