We had parent teacher conferences at the start of the week and then the girls had Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off.  Conferences are always odd, and a bit awkward.  Teachers who have been in character all day have to stay in character slightly longer than normal.  But, few have stamina to pull it off.  My wife and I ask questions, but we don’t really get many answers.  The morning of the conferences, Audio was sneezing and had a runny nose.  Just in time for the five-day weekend. 

We set up the conferences with the girls’ teachers, back-to-back on Tuesday evening, with Dee Dee’s being first.  Dee Dee said “Hi!” to some friends who were standing with their parents in the hallway and then we went into her classroom to meet her teacher.  The teacher started talking about something, but Audio was squirming around in her chair.   

While the teacher talked and motioned towards a graph on a sheet of paper with his pencil, I picked Audio up and placed her on my lap, where she continued to squirm.  As the teacher turned the sheet of paper over and pointed at another graph, I attempted to set Audio on my wife’s lap.  I was unsuccessful at transferring Audio.  She hooked her legs around mine as I tried to move her.  The teacher started to circle some information that was written below the graph.  Eventually, my wife was able to move Audio onto a chair of her own where she sat calmly, looking around the classroom, sniffling.  The teacher seemed satisfied to be finished with his portion of the conference.   

Next, we made our way through the school building to Audio’s classroom.  We were led into the room by her highly caffeinated teacher who invited us to sit on wobbly stools.  The girls sat with us for a while but were soon drawn away by the shelves of toys that surrounded the room.  Audio’s teacher let us know that Audio is doing well and showed us her graphs to prove her point.  We asked a few questions about how Audio gets along with her classmates and the teacher told us that she gets along with everyone but is trying to work out how to deal with one boy who appears to be fond of Audio.  Apparently, he has been showing his affection for Audio by giving her gifts and she wants nothing to do with him or the gifts. 

Audio was busy playing in a different part of the classroom, so I asked her teacher to tell us more about the situation.  The teacher said that the boy has brought Audio a wide variety of items and for the most part, leaves them on her desk in the morning before she has come into the room.  She said that when Audio sees the gifts, she announces, “Oh no, not again!” and knocks the gift off her desk, onto the floor.  Apparently, this makes her classmates, including the boy, giggle.  Audio’s teacher said that the boy has given Audio toys, pinecones, plastic jewelry, drawings, a wrapped McDonald’s cheeseburger, and his mom’s VISA card, among other items.