There is gum on my bathroom wall...

Tonight, as we were getting ready for bed, my partner yelled for me to come upstairs. What was this thing adhered to the wall in the bathroom next to the mirror? Was it some sort of leech? a cocoon? a snail? a horrible pod of spider eggs? What exactly was stuck to the wall next to the bathroom mirror?

On closer examination, we determined that it was, in fact, gum. Which totally makes sense, because my 10 year old son bought a pack of gum with his allowance earlier in the week, when I let him ride his bike to QD after school...

But why is there gum now stuck on the bathroom wall? Was he saving it for later? Or was an experiment to see how long it would stick there?

I mean, I know my kid. I get it. I know what happened. He had gum in his mouth and he was told to brush his teeth and he was supposed to floss and brush his retainer, but he had gum in his mouth that he wanted to save. And, hey, look outside the window, is that a squirrel? And now, looking back in the mirror, what if he held his head at this weird angle, then he'd look like an alien! And if he flexed like this, he looks like Hulk! And now mom is yelling, "hurry up because we are going to be late again!" And was that another squirrel outside? And "I'm coming, mom, I'm coming as fast as I can!" and "Come ON! We're going to be late AGAIN!" And...

And now there is a wad of gum stuck on the wall next to the bathroom mirror.

But this kid--this kid is amazing. This kid had to create a city at school yesterday that had clothing and food and books and money, but his group was only given construction paper at their table to create their entire city and they ran out of time before they'd created the clothing for their residents...and this kid...he saved the project by announcing to the class that their city was called Nude York. This kid, who is so smart and so funny and so kind and so clever, is also the kid who stuck gum on the wall in the bathroom next to the mirror.

I know this kid will be an incredible adult someday. After all, he's a pretty incredible kid. But he's also a kid who will stick gum on a wall and then somehow forget about it. And I'm just not sure that the M-Step or whatever other standardized measures of proficiency we create will be able to accurately measure this kid. I'm just not sure that he will thrive in school without being ground down into submission and bubble sheets if a squirrel happens to be outside the classroom window.

There is a wad of gum on my bathroom wall. And I'm hoping that some rubbing alcohol and peanut butter will fix it and all's well that ends well, but I also know, deep down... that there is a very good chance that my kid will be measured out there by the gum he sticks on the wall and not by his clever save of the city of Nude York. I don't know how to focus his power for good, and I don't know how to tell my son that Nude York was a genius move, even if it didn't earn him the points, and honestly, I'm not entirely sure how to get the last of the gum residue off the wall next to the mirror in my bathroom.