Angie Rubio’s Report Card by Angie Rubio’s Mother

Language Arts – Angie tends to show off her vocabulary. She’s especially fond of words that end in -ology, as if she really knows what they mean—paleontology, herpetology, meteorology. What about apology? I gave her a little vocabulary lesson when those two neighbor boys dared her to say the word “shit.” She thought she was so smart. But as soon as the word came out of her mouth, she learned the meaning of I’m going to spank you so hard you won’t know what happened to you.

Reading – Angie reads too much. She should be going out to play instead of lying around with a book. She’s ruining her eyes. Now she has to wear glasses, and don’t blame me when the kids at school call her four-eyes.

Penmanship – Angie has good handwriting. I will have her write the family Christmas cards.

Punctuality – Angie is always on time, but she could do better.

Art – Angie likes to draw. She’s pretty good at it. Maybe I did hurt her feelings when I laughed at her drawing of the Quaker Oats man. But to tell the truth, the face was too fat and where was the neck? Angie is too sensitive.

Friendly and Courteous – Angie is too shy and should just learn to be friendlier. She should just try not to say anything stupid and everything will be fine. Oh, and sometimes she forgets to say thank-you when I do things for her.

Citizenship – Yes.

Math – None of my kids is good at math. Angie is no exception. In fact, Angie is not exceptional. Anyway, I don’t play favorites with my children, though there’s something special about the first-born. Angie is the second-born. No fault of her own, of course. 

Geography – Angie likes to look at maps and talk about all the places she’ll visit when she grows up. I’ve warned her not to go to Africa. She’s liable to get a disease. Asia is out of the question. She’s terrible with chopsticks. Mexico – forget it. She can’t even speak Spanish. She should just stay in California.

Physical Education – You may have noticed that Angie is rather skinny and especially lacks upper body strength. And her legs are slightly bowed. We’re hoping all that will change as she matures. In the meantime, she should be barred from tetherball, dodge ball, and four-square games to avoid having her glasses broken.

Science – Angie wanted a frog dissection kit for Christmas, but I told her no, I’m not having dead animals in my house. So she asked for a live frog to study its behavior. I said no again. No live frogs in my house. I bought her a Suzy Homemaker Easy Bake Oven for Christmas. I know she wanted that too.

Plays Well With Others – Angie gets frustrated when she doesn’t win at games. I tell her, “Most of the time you’re going to lose. That’s life.” She never listens. She just keeps trying. I don’t know where she gets her wrongheadedness. 

Music – Eva, my first-born, is the musical one.