Lame Duck

When I arrived to pick Liam up from after school yesterday, one of his teachers came up to me very excited. She said it was so nice to finally meet me and asked after our sitter. Mind you, I have picked Liam up from after school on several occasions, although not regularly, and have said hello to her before. I'm such a good mom.

While we renewed our introductions, another teacher approached to tell me a story about Liam. I became instantly nervous, fearing the worst, but she was smiling, so I figured it couldn't be all that bad.

Apparently (one of Liam's favorite words), during roll call at afterschool, the teachers sometimes ask the children to reply with something relevant to a particular topic, rather than simply saying, "present". One day, they were isntructed to say something presidential. According to this teacher, most of the children said something about Obama, or Barack, etc. (You can tell the kind of school Liam attends.) There are children from all of elementary school in afterschool, so at least it is mixed age-wise, if not politically. When the teacher got to Liam's name, he replied, "Lame Duck." She said she then asked if anyone knew what a lame duck was. The other children thought it was funny, and said it was a duck who can't walk. She then turned back to Liam and asked him to explain. Which he did.


When we asked for a replay of this explanation, he told us, "When a new president is selected (sic) and the old one is still in office, no one believes what the old one says he will do because he doesn't have time." We were all pretty impressed. Now Liam will be repeating his lame duck comment for weeks, hoping to elicit more parental praise. :-)