First day of second grade and a walk down memory lane...

Sunshine's first day of second grade!


Today was Sunshine's first day of second grade. She was bouncing off the walls with excitement. She decided a while ago that summer vacation was too long and wanted to hit the books again.

As I helped her get ready for the day I couldn't help but reflect on the adventure it has been to be her mommy. I am the luckiest. Her nickname fits her because of the light she brings into my life. She reminds me of a little blonde girl I remember seeing in the mirror about 24 years ago...yet she is way cooler. Thinking about being a kid reminded me of a mortifyingly funny memory I have from my childhood and I thought I would share it.

Bunny plays with shaving cream during Cousin Camp.


(Screen hazes at the edges) We find ourselves in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on a cold December afternoon many, many moons ago...

The bus drops my brothers and I off at our corner and we ritualistically saunter home from school. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until we caught sight of our house. In the dead of winter every single window and door was wide open as if it were in the middle of a heated summer day. It was an unusual sight. Had mom actually lost it this time?

Our wonderment had quickly turned to disgusted enlightenment when a most pungent and offensive odor shrouded our home in stink. Our home had been hit by a skunk, who by the smell of it, had a bone to pick with us and unfortunate dead-on aim.

I don't remember the events that unfolded that evening or what my brothers and I did to draw vicious ire from my parents but the next day they made us get on the bus for school. Seriously, by that time our noses probably had gotten so use to the stench that we didn't noticed that we wreaked to high heaven.

The first of a series of unfortunate events of that day was being in a confined space, such as a magical school bus. Trust me when I say, skunk smell fills small areas rather quickly. Luckily, most of us aren't born with the understanding of a brain surgeon so we were able to get on the bus without people figuring out it was when we entered that the skunk smell proliferated the vehicle.

Mercifully, the trip ended as we pulled up to school and we made our hasty escapes. Perhaps if we separated ourselves, the stink would lessen significantly...Nope, no such luck. We walked around the halls of the school like Pig Pen from Charlie Brown.

Everywhere I went that day, I kept hearing "Ugh! What stinks?!" and "Why does it smell like skunk in here?!" Again, because of the brain surgeon thing, it took the kids in my class all morning to figure out where the odoriferous scent was originating from. When they actually put the puzzle together the full level of my embarrassment was realized.

My sweet, well meaning teacher, who was very young and a bit of a greenie in the educational field handled it the best she could. She grabbed the air freshener packet from her car and pinned it to my shirt, "to help with the smell". It was Pine scented. So to add the the experience, I was some under class man wearing a car air freshener as a fashion accessory that made me smell like a Christmas tree with really bad karma for not keeping a skunk family with all their little skunk babies warm on a frigid winter night. I found myself wondering if my brothers were fairing any better.

The world revolves quickly and even when you meet the wrong end of a skunk, someone mercifully pushes you from the headlines to page six. That someone was a fellow fifth grade boy who had an accident in his pants...(yet even more embarrassing than meeting a psycho skunk). The whispers and shock weren't for me. I was old news. They were for him. (The kids in my class were threatened within an inch of their lives if they so much as breathed an insult in his direction.)

So today, as my daughter goes out to take the second grade world by storm, I salute you, Billy or George or Samuel, whatever your name is. Thank you for taking one for the team. You really saved what was left of the few shreds of my dignity that day. And to that skunk who so gracefully made his presence known, may your little skunk babies be born without their stink.

Good luck, Sunny, I hope this year is even better than first grade!