Tuesday, May 18, 2010

A Bad Day With Paul Bunyan

I received a phone call today from Lucas' teacher. In the middle of the day. While I was at work. Needless to say, I was a bit concerned about why Mrs. Van Valkenburg would be calling me. I was certain that she was not calling to wish me a happy Tuesday. It seems that Lucas had a bit of an "issue" at school today. As I initially suspected, it was not a good thing.

Every day at school, Lucas' 1st grade class does something called Readers/Writers Workshop. Either the teacher reads a story to the kids or chooses one they can read themselves. The kids then have several pages of work that they must complete related to the story. Today's story was about Paul Bunyan. Of the six pages of work Lucas needed to complete, he did two. When his teacher collected the work and discovered that Lucas hadn't completed the assignment....or even came remotely close to completing the assignment...she asked him why. Why did he not do his work? My brilliant son...the love and joy of my life...responded, "Because I didn't want to." Seriously? Did he think that answer was going to fly? Did he think his teacher would accept that reasoning? She explained to him, of course, that was not the way things worked in school. You can't refuse to do the work simply because you don't want to do it. Wow...wouldn't that be the life! Laundry? I don't feel like it. Dishes? No thanks. Go to work? Hmmm...maybe next week. Bathe my children? Just not feeling it today. Cook dinner? Ummmm..no. There's cat food if you're really hungry. I would love to refuse to do everything I did not want to do. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. So....Mrs. Van Valkenburg called me to inform me that she would be sending the work home for Lucas to complete this evening at home. He's not getting out of it simply because he did not do it in school. So...I know what I will be doing this evening. Yea....now momma has homework. Nice.

Why can't kids just behave at school? Be an obstinate, defiant little twit at home. But please...for the love of God, just be good at school so that your mother does not have to get that call. Please just behave yourself in public so your mommy can at the very least portray the illusion that I have control over my children (no matter how blatantly incorrect that may be). Just let mommy live in her little fantasy world. My happy place. Please, kids....is that too much to ask?

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