Life Lessons Suck

Tomorrow is awards day at Z's school.  Awards include Perfect Attendance, Honor Roll, Perfect Homework, the Principal's Conduct Award and the like.  We are a talented and gifted magnet school, so all of the first grade parents are invited to will attend and photograph and/or video the recognition their preshus snowflake's many accomplishments.

Z won't be getting an award.

I'm okay with this.  Mostly.  I don't want to give her the expectation that she will be awarded just for showing up.  I want her to know that effort is required to get the gold star.  But, seriously?  Do we really have to learn this lesson in first grade?

It has been a rough year for Z.  Me, too, really.  She caught every virus early and often.  No perfect attendance.  Homework has gone from being a no-brainer to a daily battle.  No perfect homework. She is showing all the signs of being dyslexic, and the hoops that must be jumped through to get tested for the dyslexia program are EPIC.  No honor roll.  She inherited her mother's gift of the gab.  No conduct award.

T suggested that we institute First Grade Skip Day.  I don't really think that is the answer either, but, geez!  My heart aches for my sweet baby.  Not that I'm entirely sure she will be bothered by her lack of brightly-colored-copy-paper-certificate validation.  It has never occurred to Z that she is anything less than AWESOME.

But what if it does bother her?  I guess it is just a lesson that everyone needs to learn.  Why do life lessons have to suck so much?