Slide Show

My son, who’s almost four, finished preschool in late June.  He’d been attending for two hours a day, Monday through Thursday – just a taste of school, a chance for him to be in the classroom with kids his own age.  It was a successful year for him, so there was a lot to celebrate on the last day of school.  The year would end with a slide show, the teacher told the class.  All their parents were invited.  They would set up a screen, and watch the year’s highlights. Since I really needed time to write, my wife said she would take some time off from work to go with him.

He was beyond excited.  On the day of the slide show, he woke up at 5:30 in the morning, completely jazzed.  He got dressed before going to the bathroom, and put his backpack on before sitting down for breakfast.  “Mom is taking me to school!  She’s coming with me for the slide show!” he told me.  Afterwards there would be a party (!), and he would take his portfolio home (!) to show us his beautiful (!) artwork (!).

They left for the event, and I sat down at the kitchen table to type.

Two and half hours later, the car pulled into the driveway.  He walked back in, threw his backpack down, sat on the couch, and frowned.  “What happened?” I asked my wife.

“I’m not sure,” she said.  “He had a great time, but as soon as we left the party he got all quiet.”

“What’s wrong, buddy?” I asked him.

“There wasn’t even a slide show,” he said.

“There wasn’t?  What do you mean?”

“It was just a bunch of pictures of me and my friends.”

“Wait – you mean they couldn’t put the pictures up on the screen?”

“No Dad,” he said.  “It was just pictures!  They weren’t any slides! No big slides, no tunnel-slides, no water-slides…”

And then I got it.  He’d expected exactly what anyone born after the era of circular slide-cartridges, and who didn’t know anything about Prezis or PowerPoints would expect from a slide show: a presentation of extremely exciting, totally awesome PLAYGROUND SLIDES.

After a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, 15 minutes of playing dinosaurs, and reading Three By the Sea, he was more than ready for a nap.

A few days later, we went to the town playground and made a slide show of our own.  Here’s a brief sampling from it.