I'm being stalked....

.....by the mother of one of my students. Well, stalked has the wrong connotations. How about, admirer. In my ten years of teaching, I have seen the spectrum of students and have a good sense of when a student has something about them that is seriously out of whack. However, I have some to realize that there are some parents out there who have one child and that child is their sample size. So this mother, has a son, who she adores, but has no idea whether or not what he says or does is within the realm of normal. Therefore, I occasionally get calls from her on my voicemail asking me to check in with her to give her feedback on what her son is doing. I'll say that her son is a great kid and as a 9th grade boy, being monosyllabic to one's mother is completely in the realm of normal. In fact, I told the mother that if he told her everything going on in his head and life, he would be abnormal. What is abnormal, however, is the fact that about once every two weeks, I get a Hallmark greeting card to the affect of "just for you" and the like. I won't mention the Valentine's Day greeting I got, however.