After a hiatus of three weeks or so, I did my regular volunteer stint at the public school my grandchild attends. I’m “Miss Delia” to this group, because I have been reading aloud to them since the beginning of the year.

Another parent volunteer was there, whose son was in the class. He was talking to his mother, and I noticed something. “My kid sucked two fingers like that,” I said to her later. “It’s so sweet.”

“I know,” she said worriedly. “I don’t know what to do about it. The dentist says it will mess up his teeth.”

I leaned in close and said, “I sucked my thumb until I was twelve,” and she looked startled. “I don’t know why dentists do that kind of thing,” I continued. “I think they’re just mean. They say I grind my teeth, and I tell them I can’t grind my teeth because I wear a bite plate. I’m old, and the wear on my teeth is because I use them for eating.”

She laughed, and I hope she was a little reassured.

My grandson’s kindergarten class is thoroughly out of hand. It’s just the dynamic of the group. In library time, they argue, play tag, push each other around, and generally misbehave. The assistant principal, in fact, was riding herd on one little dude who is more difficult to handle than most of them. As she finally got him out of the room, I said to the librarian, “I was him.”

“Oh, I know he’s your little buddy–” she began, and I interrupted.

“No, I was him when I was that age,” I said. “My poor mother.”

Later, I met up with my adult kid when they came to pick up the grandchild. One of the grandchild’s classmates came up to us as we were talking, and asked my kid, “Why are you talking to Miss Delia?”

“Miss Delia is my mother,” said my kid gravely, and the child looked up at both of us in utter disbelief, as if the whole universe had revealed itself to be a sham.

At my kid’s house, my kid was worried the grandchild doesn’t behave himself (he is popular with his classmates because he makes “butt” jokes) and I laughed. “In that class?” I said. “He is a model of dignity and good behavior. He is self contained, he does what he’s supposed to do, and he doesn’t stand out at all.”

In fact, I often have a hard time picking him out in that group. He’s a dignified, quiet little generic white boy, with a haircut just like that of several classmates. My kid and I are both pleased he’s in that particular class, for that reason. He’s just as weird and disconcerting as both of us were when we were children, you see, but because there are so many wild characters, nobody notices him at all. Lucky child.