Like A Kit Kat

Every Monday, Hadley brings home a packet of homework that is to be turned in on Friday, so about three afternoons a week, Hadley, Harper, and I sit at the table in our sunroom and do homework.

Look how happy Hadley is.  This above picture is Hadley’s writing face.  Or rather, her “I don’t want to write face.”  She told me she had to pick a picture from her summer and write about it for homework.  I said, “Great!  You can totally do that.”

“No, Mama.  How about I tell you what to write and YOU write it.”

“I’m not going to write it, Hadley.  You can write a few sentences.”

Hence, the face.

Hadley chose a picture of she and Harper at the dinosaur dig in Pittsburgh, so I told her I’d write what she wanted to say about the picture, and she could copy it onto the stationary her teacher provided her with.  This seemed like an OK plan with Hadley.  Although, she made two pencil marks on the paper her teacher gave her and told me, “This is as much as I’m writing, Mama.”

I tell myself to write three pages every day, Hadley says three inches.  We all have to start somewhere.

Although, at one point she told me one of the sentences I wrote was “too wordy” so she shortened it. Me? Wordy? Please.  I don’t know what I think ’til I write what I say, girl.  Then I have to say it again.  And again.   Once, after I told a story to some friends for the umpteeth time, someone said, “That story gets better every time you tell it, Callie.”  She’s now the editor-in-chief of Kiwi magazine, so I like to think she knew what she was talking about (although, I think it was her polite way of saying, “Please don’t tell this story again.”).

The dinosaur picture prompted Harper to use her dinosaur stencils and make a picture.

Drawing the picture of dinosaurs made Harper start to cry, much to mine and Hadley’s confusion.

“Whatever is the matter?”

“I WANNA GO BACK TO PITTSBURGH!!!!”  Harper slammed her head on the table, sobbing about dinosaurs and digging them up.  Her teenage years are going to be awesome.

Meanwhile, while I was consoling Harper, Hadley got her homework done.

“Good job, Hadley!”  I patted her on the back, then picked up the paper and placed it neatly in her folder, on the “RETURN TO SCHOOL” side.

Hadley let out a huge sigh then said, “I don’t think I’ll be doing THAT again, Mama.”

That’s what you think, sweet child o’ mine.

 

P.S. Please tell me you all watched enough TV to get my title reference: “Homework, homework, gimme a break!”  I’m afraid you don’t know what I’m talking about and thus whithers my dream of being as crafty as the lady who threw in all those great odd facts into the Gilmore Girls’ dialogue.