2,600 More School Days 'Til College

What? Me count? Of course not. OK, just a little. Well, and I did also use a calculator. We've only spent three days doing homework and I'm not sure I can do another 2,600 days of this.

Ian has homework every night. We sat down yesterday with a piece of paper requiring him to trace the upper and lower case letters "A" and "a". There was also a sheet with apples that he had to count and then write in a blank space how many apples were on the paper. This is not rocket science, am I right?

We sat at the desk in my office, a space usually off limits to the kiddies. I figured that would motivate him. He had two pencils - one with hearts, one with ladybugs - with matching erasers that were given to him at a little friend's birthday party recently. They were not sharpened yet. I had no idea that the electric sharpener on my desk would take us on a twenty-minute detour.

"I can do it, Mom, let me," says Ian, almost elbowing me off my chair. He taps one pencil in. It spins. I show him how to hold it and apply light pressure. He follows my example, except that his pressure could have tenderized meat. The sharpener smokes.

Once the first pencil is sharpened, of course, we have to sharpen the other one. He forgets about the pressure, so I repeat the instructions while he swats away my hand and insists again that he knows how to do it by himself.

Pencils sharpened, I push the first paper, with the apples, in front of him.

"I don't want to do this homework," Ian whines.

I nudge him. He decides that before he does the homework, he'll do eeny-meeny-miney-mo to choose either the ladybug or heart pencil with which to execute the required assignment. He starts, but has to restart because he messes up the rhyme. I take a humongous deep breath and say nothing. I decided, going into this all-important Kindergarten year, that I will not be one of those parents who push their kid. He will develop his own work ethic, even if that means going to school with unfinished homework and suffering the consequences. He finally picks a pencil.

"You know, Mom, this pencil is really sharp. I think if I have to erase, I need to cover the pointy end with this eraser so it doesn't poke me in the eye," and he picks up the matching ladybug eraser and shows me how he can cover the pointy end. I take another deep breath. He needs to develop his own work ethic I remind myself.

"OK, let's focus on what you have to do here, please," I say calmly, but it's the kind of calm that actually sounds like I'm being held up at a bank and don't want to upset the guy with the gun. What I really want to say is "Let's do the freaking homework already!!" Except that "freaking" probably would have been the less-printable version of the expression.

Ian rolls the pencil in the little space between his top lip and nose. He is totally bored. Admittedly, this homework is stuff he was doing with his babysitter when he was 3. He's been in daycares and pre-schools since he was 3 months old so we might even be ready for Calculus now.

"This is boring," he whines again, the pencil dropping from his face to the paper.

"I know. This is pretty easy. Should I ask Senorita Alfaro to give you harder assignments?" (*Ed Note: Ian is attending a dual-language immersion school in Hoboken called HoLa, in which his class is taught 90% in Spanish through Grade 2, then 50/50 with English. We expect him to be able to run for President of any one of 35 Spanish-speaking countries by the time they're done with him. Either that, or help me at the airport in Madrid if his father isn't around.)

"NOO!" gasps Ian. Are you crazy, wench! his look says to me.

"OK, so let's do it."

Ian counts the apples. There are nine of them. It takes him about nine minutes to count them. I feel ants crawling up my pants and have this urge to run around the block or hit a tennis ball against a concrete wall like it's match point at Wimbledon.

"So how many are there?"

He looks at me and the pencil is back on his lip. His eyes have narrowed to slits and are crossed, like he's trying to see the end of his nose. "I don't know."

What the freak!! I'm thinking. (Again this is not the version of the word I would have used if we lived in a different zip code.)

Then, faster than you can say 'college application essay', I fall prey to being one of "those parents" that "do" their kids "homework" for them. "There are nine apples, Ian. Nine. You just counted them. I saw you."

"Ohhhhh, OK. Nine."

"So write it."

"I don't know how to write '9'," he says, which we both know is a balls-out lie.

So I write it. I put his apple homework in his green folder, but first I mess up the '9' a little so it looks like he wrote it.

Then I write "Screw it" on a post-it and think about sticking it to the folder, but don't. Not this time anyway.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I swear I just had them. They were right here. I sent a shiny faced three-year-old and neatly combed almost-five-year-old to school last week. Now, I have no idea who I'm living with.

You see, I'm all for school. But school also has these things called friends.

Friends are much more influential than I am. Whatever I say now skips right by them. To be honest, if that's how it's going to be, I wish friends would pick up the groceries, make dinner and change the beds, thank you.

After Day 1 of pre-school, Julian came home jiving at me in the bathtub like Will Smith.

"I got, I got, I got soap in my eyes. Woah, Mama! Shake it, shake it!" Julian said, jiggling his frontal parts wildly and shaking his head like a wet dog. When he noticed the confused expression on my face, he started cackling and baring his pointy canines.

Wha?

Ian, now in Kindergarten, has also learned some new ways to express himself. (Some of what he says could serve as useful dialogue for soap opera script writers if they are running low.) When I vetoed TV on a school night, he promptly informed me that I am "the worst mother in the entire world!"

"Good," I said. "Then I'm doing my job. Didn't you know that was my job, Ian? To be the absolute worst mother ever?"

"I don't want to talk to you EVER!" he shouted, stomped to his room and slammed the door. I've said I-don't-know-how-many-times that there is no door slamming in our house, so this time, I marched into his room with a pair of Fiskars and clipped about 30 silly bands right off his wrist. So there. How's that for worst mother ever!? Cue evil cackle...

Every day they come home with more complaints about how our life does not measure up to their friends lives. We need a bigger house so we can buy a dog like one of their friends has. I need to put cupcakes in their lunch because the lunches their friends have are more cooler. I have to let them wear ripped NFL jerseys to school because that's what all their friends are wearing. My answer to all of these complaints is: What? Sorry I wasn't listening.

I'm going to have to bust out some Aretha Franklin on them and those friends if this keeps up.

Princessa's Dance Party: A One-Act Play

Sometimes (often, actually) the best Morning Talks are the ones I'm not part of. While I was dressing yesterday, this is what I heard going on in the hallway from the voices of Ian and Julian.

The Players (Made in China)
Princessa - played by a plastic figurine of Bo Peep from Toy Story
TRex - played by blue plastic dinosaur whose legs goosestep when you push a button under his tail
Pterodactyl - played by green rubber bird


Scene One
Princessa is being jammed into the non-existent passenger compartment of a model Formula 1 race car by TRex. Pterodactyl looks on, wings in permanent state of being about to take off.

Princessa (in falsetto voice): I can't fit in this car. What are you doing to me TRex?

TRex: But Princessa! You are going to be late to your dance party. Wait! Stay here! I'm going to set it up.

Pterodactyl: Where are you going?

TRex (from boys' bedroom): Over here! Princessa can dance on the Peter Rabbit box! TRex, c'mon, drive her over here. Fast! Get moving! Formula Uno! Wooo hooo!

Car screeches out of the hallway and into the boys' room.

Princessa: Heeeelllp! I told you I don't fit in this car!

Pterodactyl: Shut up princessa! If there's any more screaming, you're going to have a time out. And NO dance party!


Scene Two
Princessa is being bobbed around violently on the Peter Rabbit box while TRex makes percussion noises. All of the sudden, Pterodactyl wails.

Pterodactyl: Ahhhhh! Help me! Help me! She put her hook in my mouth! I'm going to have to bite her!

TRex: C'mon princessa, kill him! Shoot him with your hook. DO IT!

Princessa: Harrahaharrahah! Bang bang bang! You're a mean Pterodactyl! I've had enough out of you!

TRex: Good job princessa! You're awesome!

Pterodactyl: I TOLD you there is no hitting or screaming or any of those things or you're going to get a time out. That's it! TIME OUT!


Scene 3
Princessa has been put inside the bowels of Mr. Potato Head -- cleared of its ear, nose, eyeglasses and eyeball parts -- for time out. She's crying for her mommy.

TRex: Why did you have to put her in time out? Now she's going to miss her dance party.

Pterodactyl: Too bad. I warned her. Too late now. I'm sick of all this crying!

Princessa (falsetto voice echoing from inside Mr. PH): Is my time out finished yet?

TRex: Almost princessa. I'm going to play some music for you so you can have a dance party while you're there, while you're there inside, inside, inside the Mr. Potato Head. OK?

TRex elevates over the carpet and picks up a harmonica in his teeth. Miraculously, breath comes from out of his plastic body and the harmonica blares.

Princessa: Yeah! I'm dancing. Woo hoo! Thanks TRex. But I'm going to bump my head in here though. Can I come out now?

Pterodactyl: No way! Not until I say you can. Stop asking me that.

TRex: Princessa! I'm going to rescue you now! Hang on!

TRex kicks Pterodactyl to the ground with rapid goosesteps and then he eats him. Then TRex smashes the plastic door on Mr. Potato Head's rear end to free Princessa.

Princessa: Oh TRex! I love you! I think we should have a wedding! Will you be in my wedding?

TRex: Cool, a wedding. Sure, Princessa!

Princessa mauls TRex's face in a sloppy wet kiss. Pterodactyl comes crying into my room to complain that TRex kicked and ate him and that he doesn't want to play with TRex anymore. I comfort Pterodactyl by telling him that we can stop payment on the humongous check we sent for their wedding gift. Pterodactyl's happy and Princessa and TRex have no idea that their checking account is about to blow up.

THE END