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This weekend did we ever meet a collection of smarty parents. Actually, I never really thought of these parents who are QUITE zealous about their kids education as smarty parents. But, this weekend I met the smarty mom extraordinaire. Help, I better spell check extraordinaire! Or, I could just have dinner at her house (tee hee). See below.

This weekend we went to for a middle school student tour. Kids are able to visit the school while still in middle school to see if they are interested in the school and to see what is required to get in so they can work on their “resume” over the next couple years to help with admission to the school. So, too funny that I ran into the smarty mom who shush’d me at the Battle of the Books (BOB) competition. At the competition, Matt had a bi on the round so he and I were watching the round for fun. I was telling Matt that even if the team couldn’t remember the passage in the book, they should listen to the context clues in the question. In that question, there was a question about characters eating plantains. There was only one book with Spanish characters in a Spanish setting – Cuba 15. So I whispered Cuba 15 out loud – apparently a little too loud. I was shush’d by the Mom in front of me. I noticed that on the Mom’s lap, there were multiple binders, chock full of schtuff. I also noticed that seemingly all the parents from that school’s team were at the competition. I also noticed that the parents from that school were fast and feverishly jotting down the questions. I guessed that they planned on being in the finals – or were just doing their job well.

Here is an interesting sociological observation: the number of parents attending seemed to decrease as the socioeconomic level of the school decreased.

So, anyway, smarty mom was quite a character. She noticed Matt from BOB. I knew her team did a great job in BOB. They did win, of course! Yes, I’m jealous. I mentioned that this past year, our team did not seem to have a plan for how to go about preparing for the competition. She said that her school was the same way before she got there. So she SINGLEHANDEDLY created a “methodology” for BOB competition preparation. All jealousy aside, I would like to help with that for Matt’s team next year if he joins. I mentioned that Matt was not planning on participating next year because all the good team members were in the 8th grade and they were graduating. I had told Matt that’s why he needed to step up – which is not in Matt’s shy style. But when SMARTy-mom said the same thing to Matt, he changed his tune. First point for smarty mom.

So then, the conversation weaved to how the grade scale for A’s, B’s, C’s, is different than when we were young. Ours used to be 90-100 was an A, 80 – 89 was a B, etc. So then she said “What is the range for a C? I wouldn’t know”. The kids were just about to answer and she repeated her smarty parent comment for emphasis. “We would not know the grade range for a C. What is it?”

She then went on to tell us about how she donated her PSAT books to her local library because HER son was SO over the PSAT’s. She was on to bigger and better things and she just had to get rid of those books.

So then, she (with great pride I might add) started talking about how she was reading the dictionary to her kids at the dinner table. I started to snicker internally until Howard looked at me with that look indicating that I should be the last person to comment. I often read the book of Greek and Latin roots to the kids at the table. But this is so different. I just have such great enthusiasm for Greek and Latin roots and seldom have a captive audience with all 3 kids like I do at the dinner table. So, the truth comes out. I’m not really annoyed by smarty mom. I’m jealous! I’m in competition with her. I started envisioning meeting her again at BOB and having so many binders that I need a hand-cart to carry them all. I would meet her again at the school for the discovery day with a Smarty-mom sweatshirt that I designed, had trademarked and had sold to Moms all over the world who wanted to be like me. I would not just read the Greek and Latin roots at the dinner table – I would make up study cards and hang them all over the dining room. I would even hang them from strings from the ceiling so as the fan blew, the kids would see endless possibilities of how these beautiful roots could come together to form amazing words. I would even create an audio tape of Greek and Latin roots and play it for them as they fell asleep.

I would even start SMA – smarty moms of America – and I would be the president. No, I would be the chairman of the board and would raise trillions of dollars and write books for preparation for all sorts of things like BOB methodology and preparing to get into the school. I would write a New York Times best seller about creating a road map for building your kids pre-college resume starting with the 7th grade. Smarty parents all over the world would clamor for my books. When I met her again, she would not just recognize my genius son, she would gasp at the good fortune to meet me in person. She would bow down in homage and try to butter me up so she could run for a place of my board of SMA.

I guess it takes one to know one.