Response to the Rave

Kari had to share this like she did in person and on the phone with me yesterday about the note on Anna’s backpack.

Before I respond, read this disclaimer:

If you are a professional in the school system, a personal friend of mine, or if you know Kari or work at her preschool, if you are related to her or me in or go to my church or her church or know anyone who does, or if you are remotely connected to this situation, please realize that this response was an attempt to make her life, to bring levity to the situation, and to make a point and NOT intended to frustrate, annoy, disturb, or provoke anyone to anger.

To sum up her rant, Kari’s daughter has FASD and is in preschool. Yesterday, as Kari writes “Anna came home from school with a large piece of paper taped with 4 long pieces of masking tape, covering the front of her preschool princess backpack. The paper had a note from Anna written in blue marker ink. It said, "Please check my backpack and do homework with me." Love, Anna.”

I told her that she should type a response and tape it to the backpack to send back to school this morning that said,

“I bet you didn’t I knew how to type, did you? And my mom didn’t know that I knew how to write so neatly with a blue marker. I have been trying to get my mom to do my family tree assignment with me but she’s kind of confused. You see, it’s pretty complicated. I have a birth family ... a birth mom and a birth dad and a birth brother (who lives with me) and some other birth relatives that I don’t know that don’t live with me, maybe even siblings and they are all connected to me by blood. And then I have a foster family that I lived with for the first year of my life and they are a big part of my family but they don’t fit into the family tree anywhere. And then I have my real family, my mom and dad who adopted me and my other siblings. So my mom and I aren’t sure how to put all those branches on a tree and which way they go. Besides, the week that the assignment was supposed to be turned in I had pneumonia, so we were really kind of caught up in the fact that I actually had steroid psychosis and didn’t think much about my preschool homework.

I am working very hard to try to get my mom to help me with my homework because I am very much aware that my entire educational future, including my entrance into Harvard or Princeton, all hinges on the completion of this preschool homework assignment. She tends to be stubborn though, so please bear with me as I attempt to enlist her cooperation. Love, Anna.”