Tikatu's Travels Through Time

I hate homework. Not housework, though that's a subject in itself. Homework. Like the homework that my kids bring home from school.

Now the Girl is pretty self-motivated. She'll get her work done in a timely fashion. And Boy #1 knows what he's supposed to do. But Boy #2? Different story entirely.

Yesterday, once we got home, they all had a snack. The Girl buckled down to get her work done. But the boys decided to play and wrestle, until I yelled at them to get their homework going. Boy #1 did his work, no problem. But Boy #2 pulled a newspaper out of his backpack and started looking for his spelling words in it. Fine, I thought. But it seemed to be taking a long time to get it done and when I looked at the homework list for the week, I didn't see that particular activity on the list. I asked him about it, and he said, "Oh, the teacher said we could do this for extra credit."

Needless to say, I made him stop that and buckle down to his actual homework. He had to take the math pages with him in the car when we went to pick up the Hubby. He complained that he couldn't read one of the figures he was supposed to subtract because the number ran off the page. Then he discovered he was working on the wrong side of the page! So he had to turn the paper over and start over again! By the time we got home, he said he had finished both his math and his reading workbook. So I breathed a sigh of relief and set him to finish reading the book he's had for weeks and for which there was a diorama due by the end of the week. He worked on it before dinner and en route to Awana Club and finished it.

Now, both the Hubby and I had been after him for the past two weeks to finish the book and get the project done. It was due on the 28th. Yes. Today. I thought it was due Friday, but no. It was due today. Boy #2 knew this, for this morning he said to me, "Perhaps I should write the teacher a note; she said she wouldn't accept the project on Friday." He knew it was due today. I knew what date it was due, but got mixed up about what day of the week it was. He deliberately didn't tell me what the teacher said about it last night so that he could go to Awana. It was store night and he really wanted to go to it; if I had known last night that it was due today, he wouldn't have gone. He would have stayed home and gotten the project done!

I was livid. We had pushed and pushed and he had putzed around for weeks, not reading the easy book that the teacher had assigned, but instead reading Bunnicula. Now the project was due. And he was in big hairy trouble.

Fortunately, his sister and brother were helpful this morning. I made him eat quickly, dress quickly, and then work on a very basic scene from the beginning of the book. His sister and brother helped fix their lunches while I helped him with the diorama. I'll be interested in seeing what the teacher thinks of it, and whether he'll be honest about how much work he did and how much I did.

As a result of this putzing around and not doing what he was supposed to when we told him, he's lost the privilege of playing computer games for at least a week, possibly two. Depends on what the Hubby says when I tell him about the whole affair. And it looks like I'm going to have to be more vigilant about his homework, making sure he works on it as soon as he gets home, even if it means he doesn't get to play with his siblings. And pull out a timer so that he'll read for at least 15 minutes a night until he's finished his assigned reading.

I hate homework.