Kathy had a teacher conference tonight. Nicole’s homework came home last Friday and Monday without the usual summary of S’s on classwork, conduct, etc. attached to her homework. Nicole told Kathy that Ms. Lindsey had run out of slips. Kathy asked Ms Lindsey about this.

Turns out Nicole had gotten an S- in conduct on Friday and Monday for talking too much with her neighbors. Nicole tore the slips off.

Kathy explained to Nicole that she shouldn’t hide things from Mom and Dad, and that S minuses don’t get her in much trouble. Just an ice cream ban on Fridays. (I didn’t know anything about slips or ice cream bans, but I was able to follow all of this o.k.)

“You should not be afraid to come to me and Dad,” Kathy explained to Nicole. “We are the best friends you could ever have because we will always be here for you whenever you have a problem.”

Kathy noticed that Nicole had big tears coming out of the corner of her eyes. “Why are you crying, Nicole?”

“I don’t know. I’m just so happy!”

* * *

In reading The Hobbit to the kids tonight, we came upon a good scene to re-enact: where the Hobbit finds his courage. Danny played Bilbo, lost in Mirkwood in the dark. He rested against the foot of his bunk-bed-tree, and fell asleep. Nicole, the giant Spider, crept from her hiding place in the bunk-bed-tree, and tied up Danny-Bilbo’s legs with her jump-rope-spider web.

We turned off all the lights in the forest-bedroom.

Bilbo-Danny woke up just in time to feel the sticky jump-rope-web being wrapped around his arm. He jumped up and fell down, discovering his tied legs. Bilbo only fell once, but Danny thought this part was fun enough to get up and fall several times.

Then Bilbo-Danny remembered his sword (Danny’s plastic sword and sheath that was the best buck Santa ever spent.) He drew it and hacked at the Spider-Nicole. Instead of sticking the spider in the eyes, however, Bilbo-Danny was under strict instructions from his wizard-father to gently poke Spider-Nicole in the tummy.

Then Spider-Nicole got to do a fantastic Death Dance which involved jumping and flailing of limbs. She curled up in a terrific ball at Bilbo-Danny’s mortal blow (poke).

Danny then repeated the words of Bilbo to his sword, only where Bilbo named his sword Sting, Danny chose to name his Stinger.

We didn’t get far, but it was a lot of fun.

You see, I learned on 20/20 from this fun-loving, fun-learning teacher that when reading to kids, it isn’t important to get to the end of the story. And here I’ve been worrying about getting to the end since Christmas.