it's the most wonderful time of the year

Good old PTC season ... aka "these apples don't fall far from the tree."

Just kidding ... none of my kids, no matter how much grief they give (well, the grief giving is mutual, I'm sure), are written off as their parents' mini-me's. But it is sometimes sobering, often entertaining, and always enlightening to see the sources up close.

A smattering of Week One soundbytes:

"It's good she has a Chinese teacher. Good, good, good." - Chinese dad
"Why do you give so much homework?" - a mom
"Are you going to start giving more homework?" - a different mom
"She brings home vocab words that aren't even real. Like b-e-n-i-g-n ... that's not even a word!" - a really different mom
"I can see why he's not stressed this year. You're very kind." - my kind of mom
"You loud at her, she cry." - a dad
"Let's just get started." - malicious father
"You started without me?" - his baffled ex-wife
"Your daughter is meeting the math benchmarks with excellence." - me
"Hey you, you try harder! Try harder!" - that kid's dad

TGIF: