“Oh my god, I feel so bad!”

My daughters were at the school this fine Saturday morning working on a garden project with other middle schoolers.  I assumed she felt bad that I was picking them up early and leaving their friends to continue the work.  “Why?” I asked.

“I just totally spoiled Romeo and Juliet for my friends,” said my oldest.

“How do you spoil a 400 year old play? How does anybody not know how it ends?”

“They didn’t know that Mercutio and Tybalt both die!”

“Explain.”

“Ok, Elizabeth and I were play fighting, so she said, “I’m Mercutio, you be Tybalt!”

Ok, pause…   *beam with pride* … Ok, continue.

So then my oldest continues, “So then I say, Mercutio drew first! Ha! You die!  But then I remembered Tybalt dies too and said Oh wait no so do I.  And my friends who are reading the play in class with me now looked at us like, “WHAT?””

Only my kids!  But you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way 🙂

My daughter was told that they’re starting Shakespeare something like three weeks ago. They did a week on Shakespeare’s life, a week on the sonnets, and almost a week on the prologue to Romeo and Juliet.

So at long last my daughter comes home from school today and flies directly at me.  “Daddy!” she yells excitedly, “We finally started Romeo and Juliet!”

“Great!” I say, “How did he end up approaching all that collier/choler/collar stuff?”

“We didn’t get that far.”

“As in, literally the first line. You didn’t get that far.”

“Well, we didn’t really start it.”

Turns out they started watching the movie.  The 1968 Zeffirelli version that everybody watches.

“Oh, so how far did you get in the movie?” I asked.

“The scene where Juliet’s mom is asking whether she wants to get married, and the nurse says a bunch of inappropriate stuff which we mostly didn’t understand.”

“And how did your teacher handle that?”

“He explained one of them, kind of, in a very roundabout way. I don’t even remember which one it is.”

“Here’s the thing about Romeo and Juliet,” I told her (for not the first time).  “If you start out by assuming that everything either Mercutio or the Nurse says is a dirty joke?  You’re probably right.  There’s a really good one in the beginning where, I think the Nurse is actually saying it was her husband that says this to a 13yr old girl, but it’s something about how she’s so klutzy she falls on her face, but when she’s older and knows better she’ll learn how to fall on her back.”

“THAT’S THE ONE!” my daughter said.

I tell you, this teacher and I are on the same wavelength. 🙂

My oldest had to write a sonnet for her homework.  The rules set down were, in order, that it should be:

• 14 lines
• 10 syllables per line
• ABAB/CDCD/EFEF/GG scheme
• iambic pentameter

Parents of middle school children, you know this scene. You’ve got to head up to the school hours after classes are over to pick up one of your children who had to stay after for one activity or another.  As a parent you think, “Great! One on one time! Bonding!”

“How was school?” you ask.

“Eh,” you  hear come from the back of her head. She’s busy texting.

“What were you doing after school?”

“What? Daddy, I’m trying to schedule my next appointment. And I need to pee.”

“Oh. So we’ll just sit here in silence, then.”

“I just have to do this.  And pee.  Badly. I haven’t gone to the bathroom since seven this morning.”

Now, I’m the kind of dad that won’t take this sort of thing lying down. So I spend the ten minute drive home narrating the entire trip.  “Hey look a red light, we’ll just hang out and be quiet longer, that’ll be nice. Oh, no, wait, turned green, here we go. Taking a left.  You know the police tend to hang out on this street you have to be careful, it says limit 25 but before you know it you’re going 40 and that’s when they get ya. I should really slow way way down. You did say you had to pee, didn’t you?  Wouldn’t want to get pulled over, that would take forever.”

You get the idea.  Get sassy with me missy and you’ll pay for it.

So we get home, she flies upstairs, we go about our business.  I help make dinner.  Eventually dinner is ready and we all sit down to dinner.

“Guess what?” this same sassy child tells me as I’m setting the table.

“What?” I ask.

“We had a Shakespeare presentation at school today!”

“….I WAS IN THE CAR WITH YOU FOR TEN MINUTES AND YOU DIDN’T FEEL LIKE MENTIONING THAT?”

“I told you, I had to pee.”

“What kind of presentation?” I asked.

“Some guy dressed up like Shakespeare, told us everything about him.”

“Which you probably knew already.”

“Yeah, mostly. Then he did some stuff from the plays.  He recited a sonnet.”

“Which one?”

“The shall I compare thee one.”

“18.  Obvious choice.”

“And I was sitting there listening and I thought, ‘Hey, I know this one.'”

“You certainly should, you’ve literally known how to sing it since you were five years old!”

My children have literally grown up with Shakespeare, from the time my oldest was five, my middle three, and my son one.  Of course it was much more prevalent when they were younger and I could read/sing/show them whatever I wanted. As they’ve gotten older, life gets in the way and other responsibilities and activities take over.  So I’ve often wondered how much of what I tell them remains.

The other day I was telling them about the plan to scan Shakespeare’s grave, despite the curse.

“What did they find?” asked my oldest.

“They haven’t said yet,” I told them. “Apparently it’s a big deal for the 400th anniversary of his death, so we have to wait until then.”

“When did he die?” my middle child asked.

“I have no middle child,” I said, mouth agape.

She froze, realizing that Shakespeare Day is something I may have mentioned two or three thousand times in their lives. “Give me a hint,” she asked.

“Did he die on my birthday, or close to my birthday?” I asked. Embarrassed silence.  “Oldest child,” I said, “Help her out, would you?”

“When’s your birthday?” asked oldest child.

…

I’m changing my will and giving everything to the boy.  Also, changing his name to Cordelia.