The Weekly Gif Parade: Homework version

I find it odd how much time is spent discussing, debating, and prepping parents for the first three or four years of your kid's life. If you peruse the internet for anything more than a hot minute, you'll stumble across many of the landmines and rocket propelled grenades on the front lines of the mommy wars. Twenty minutes on google will give you all the talking points you need to do battle at major cities like BreastorFormulatam, Toddler Tempersburg, Nappomattox, and all sorts of historic sites. And yet oddly enough, all of that tapers off once you send those life ruining altering little blabbermouths down the way to the nearest, well researched schoolhouse.

Why is that?

I'll tell you why. It's because getting your kid to sleep through the night, wondering what age to introduce solids, even the ear shattering shrieks of a baby who wails inconsolably the moment water touches her skin (I'm looking at you, pinky) pales in comparison to the living, breathing hell that is guiding your child through their homework every night.

It all starts off innocently enough.

There's a table, a pencil, a stack of paper, and perhaps a school book or two and there's a child who just moments earlier was making you think about ending it all regaling you with tales of how her bff has a boyfriend that kisses her on the playground. Then you get home and you are forced to ask a question that will turn the tide of your evening in irreparable ways.

"Do you have homework?"

Suddenly, the child who was charming you just moments before,

is looking at you like you've asked them if you can kick their puppy.







You get yourself together,

And find something else to do in the misguided hope that for once, they will just finish the work already and leave you in peace. But before you can settle in all comfortable-like,


 

Inevitably, one of your kids has to roll up on you and interrupt you polishing off the rest of the sweet potato pie with a question. Obviously, no one wants to believe their kids are dumb and most kids are not dumb. However, if you've never looked at your kid and wondered if their brain fell out of their head between the school and your front door, you might not be a parent.

"Mommy, I don't know if I should add or subtract."

Now look, I'd love to tell you that I am the soul of patience, but I'm quite happy with the length of my nose.




So instead I'll confess a little irritation with the fact that no matter how many times I tell them that I'm not telling them the answer, they continue to come at me with questions that can I can only assist with by doing just that. Instead, I end up spitting out, "read it.again," through clenched teeth while wearing a plastered on smile.




This goes on at least three more times before they creep back up all sheepishly, paper in hand to ask you another question.


Just when you're about to lose your damned mind,



your child utters the words that save your sanity, "Will you check this for me?"


Seems innocuous enough I know but truly, this is a good thing. It means your whole ordeal is very nearly over.




So you gladly accept his paper, stare at it for a long moment,




And remind yourself that you did graduate high school once upon a time and dammit, you were pretty good at it. But that was then, this is now, and startlingly, you're right back in the fifth grade cutting your eyes at your hosebeast teacher and wondering what the hell good math will ever do you anyway.







You spend a few moments reacquainting yourself with the material, figuring out what new crap they're calling the terms your teachers spent all that time drilling into your head,





Until finally, you can issue a coherent explanation without risking your kid looking at you like this,




However, it's all worth it for bliss of seeing the look on your baby's face the exact moment they grasp a new concept.





Or perhaps the moment you can send them to bed. I don't know. But I'll let you know when I figure it out. This stuff has to pay off sometime, right?


The Hot Mess Housewife, molding young minds since 2001.

I humbly submit myself for my flogging

momgrind

So pete and pinky are headed towards the home stretch on this whole school business as I've previously mentioned. This means it's awards time.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

I hate awards ceremonies. Actually, I hate school ceremonies of all sorts. They remind me of those nightmarish assemblies from childhood where you were dragged kicking and screaming to sit under the watchful eye of your stern faced teacher for two hours just to wait for your 15 seconds of fame. It doesn't help that all school gyms smell like sweat, french fries, and humiliation.

So my kids kiss me good bye with their chirpy little voices and barely brushed hair and remind me, MOOOOOMMMMYYYYY, you're coming to the award ceremony, right?? Yes, yes, 11:15, I know, I'm muttering without much assurance given I just hit the good sleep phase after feeding pudding less than an hour prior.

Okay, mom, pete tells me. He wants to show me the award and trophy he won almost six months ago that his art teachers been sitting on for an eternity. I've never even seen this damned thing. That alone might be worth enduring the ridiculously annoying sound of rubber scritching across whatever the hell they make gym floors with. Plus, he needs me to bring it home. Apparently, both the art and the trophy are too big to take home on the bus with them. I tell pete that thing better look like some Picasso or he owes me money and then I go back to sleep knowing I have plenty of time to catch up on my beauty rest.

At the proper time and not a moment before given my glorious excitement over this event, I start preparing to venture out into society. I dress the kid, dress myself, I even do my hair even though it's been pouring all day and I'm guaranteed to look like a cross between a drowned rat and a bishon frise whose just been introduced to a light socket. I chase down the camera, shove an extra pacifer in my back pocket, spend an eternity looking for the last place I left the Moby wrap and other assorted tasks. I pick up the kid, slap a hat on his head and I'm ready to go when I spy the little flyer letting me know exactly where in this maze of brick and dry erase boards I'm headed.

I pick it up and give it the quick glance over when I see the times assigned to my clamoring little children.

10:15-11:15 am in the gymnasium

MOTHER HEIFER!!!!

Side note: why must they spell out gymnasium, can someone tell me? Is it to sound smarter? Help kids with their vocabulary?

But that's neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is that I have promised my children I would show up at their smelly, obnoxious little ceremony and I have bungled it all by getting the stupid times wrong. No one is every going to believe it was an accident after I just shared my universal loathing of such events. But it was, I swear. I may hate assemblies and award ceremonies and sitting through all the other chatterbox, loud mouth, sniffly little foot squicking children but I have to admit, I get all sorts of verklempt when they call my babies' names and they flop across the stage, chests puffed out with pride to get their little Mathematics master certificate and free McDonalds hamburger coupon that we never manage to cash in.

As pete says, who goes to McDonalds and orders a hamburger? Eww, mom. Eww.

Things I will do this week

1) Finish reading Doctor Zhivago.

I watched the updated miniseries a few weeks ago starring Keira Knightley. I love everything she does and I had an extended Russian obsession when I was in high school, including attempting to learn Russian. Then there are the Edwardian era costuming and all the eastern style embroidery.

And yes, I know this isn't Keira but look at the embroidery on that peasant top.
::sigh::

So clearly this book and I were meant to be. Just you wait until the new Anna Karinina update comes out. You will all hate me. You're welcome in advance.


2) Not shank pinky's dance teacher.

I could bore you with the long story of how I nearly hurt that woman hard but suffice to say, she is not my favorite person and we are heading into the home stretch towards recital. If she cuts her eyes at me one more time, I might do something to permanently alter her ability to do so in the future. Apparently, asking her what I need to do with this kid's hair isn't worthy of her time unless I'm also paying for expensive private lessons and/or am willing to shell out ridiculous amounts of money to put an ad in the recital program. I guess I just don't like my kid enough. And what I dislike even more is being ignored and then yelled at when someone fails to provide the information I've spent weeks asking for.

Pray for this woman's eyeballs.

3) Weed the garden and plant the limas and more bush beans.

This one should be easy peasy and I bought a nifty new gardening hat for a whole three dollars at walmart. It looks delightfully stupid.

4) Finish the smocking on pudding's Easter outfit.

I'm not sure why I'm calling it the Easter outfit anymore. We all know what month it is. I don't know what it is about Easter but this is the second year in a row I've failed to produce awesome outfits for this particular holiday even after all that planning, ordering and even cutting. If I don't get this damned thing done soon, it won't fit the kid at all.

5) Start my pretty lace shawl.

Someone think good thought for my doofy behind because I really think I must have accidentally got into the good stuff if I'm actually laboring under the delusion that I'll be able to finish this thing. Hell, at least the yarn is pretty. I'll share all the details tomorrow, for swears.

So that's my list. Feel free to yell at me if you think I won't meet my goals. Just make sure the dance studio lady hasn't pissed me off or you might not get the results you're looking for.

Unless you're willing to provide an alibi, of course.

Sunday Dinner

Oh what a beautiful morning!

My children made me breakfast on Sunday. Okay, so I made them make breakfast. This makes me responsible for the girlchild leaving the house this morning looking like she caught a case of the measles. I'd almost rather she had. Then, I wouldn't have to explain that I let my kid get popped in the face by a roving band of melted butter that hopped right from the frying pan and onto her skin. Dude, totally her fault for dropping a piece of ham on to the skillet from a high point, right? Or, yanno, my fault for not paying attention while she was cooking.

Then there was the moment when we got to church I asked pete where the diaper bag was.

"Oh, you must have forgotten it at home, mommy."

Wut, who?? I, who said, pete, get my purse and the diaper bag and go get in the car?

Yeah, sure, I forgot it. ::eyeroll:: Thank God pudding didn't have a massive blow out at church because what better way is there to spend your Mother's day than getting shat on by your own kid.

Le sigh.

Let's talk about dinner, shall we?

Before you yell at my husband for making me cook on Mother's Day, please understand that I adore our Sunday dinner tradition. I plan the menu well in advance, researching recipes, wondering if I should buy a new serving platter or baking pan, what new food to offer up, etc. I planned this Sunday's dinner before I even realized what today was and once it was planned, the hounds of hell couldn't stop me from looking forward to making my very first poundcake and attempting homemade beef pot pie.

Since my greatgrandmother taught me to eat my veggies before dessert, let's start with dinner. For my Sunday Dinners, I've been working with the Cover and Bake cookbook from America's Test Kitchen. I cannot rave enough about the awesomeness contained in these marvelous pages. In addition to some kick ass recipes perfectly suited for my tastes, as a bonus, this book spends a huge amount of time explaining why they've chosen to make the recipe the way they did, how to select ingredients, and what type of equipment to use. Even if you know how to cook well and can easily tie up the perfect pork roast, I guarantee you this book will teach you things you didn't know.

Today, it taught me to make a perfect pot pie. First, the ingredients.

You'll also need your favorite biscuit dough or pie crust recipe.

So now that you've got all that gathered, let's proceed. Heat up the butter in a large pot and cook the beef, seasoning with salt and pepper until browned. Remove from pan and set aside. While resisting the urge to shove all the tasty beef down your gullet, brown the onion and carrots. Stir in the garlic then sprinkle in the flour. Keep stirring and cook flour until golden brown. Then slowly add the wine, scraping up any browned bits. Next, pour in the chicken broth, tomato paste, and thyme. Stir until smooth. Dump the beef you haven't managed to eat back into the pot and stick a lid on it. Then let that bad boy simmer on low until the beef is nice and tender.

Slap the whole shebang in cassarole dish. I used buttermilk biscuit dough for my topping. I rolled it out, stamped out about 12 biscuits and laid them on top all nice like. Then I baked it at 400 for about 20 minutes or until the biscuits were nice and brown.

Profit.

So for mother's day, mr man gave me exactly what I wanted, another opportunity to turn out an amazing dinner, not because I'm the type of sap who lovingly declares how much they just love taking care of their family but because I like being a grade A attention whore in my cute apron.

Call CPS!!

My poor, abused, unloved baby!!

Nubbie = happiness

So I thought I'd be a nice mom and take the kids downtown to see the Tall Ships on the Savannah River. Sadly, my happy behind got there too late to do anything fun and the city had this brilliant set up that made getting decent pictures nearly impossible without dropping scratch on boarding tickets. But that's neither here nor there. The point is, I was trying to do something cool with my children and ended up wrecking the helpless one in the process.

In my defense, I was attempting to use my stellar mom skills to keep Pudding's beloved nubbie from going rogue as we crossed a busy intersection. In my crusading zeal, I swiped my unsuspecting buddhabelly right below his little eye and left a nice, shiny bleeder as evidence of my fail.

Of course, he wailed like I tried to chuck him into the river, earning me a cascade of side eyes as I attempted to comfort him, once safely across the street of course. But it's only fair as I did try to blind him.

But in an effort to prove I'm not a complete screw up, I will take the time to tell you that I am so good at this mothering thing, that I know what my kids need even before they do. For instance, Peteybird came home sick from school today. Lucky for him, mama had a nice pot of soup simmering on the stove. It's totally because I'm awesome, right?

::sigh::

I know. I still tried to gouge out my kid's eye. It's going to take more than a soup coincidence to make up for that.

Guess I better think about buying the kid a pony, huh?

He looks relatively unscathed though, yes?

To make myself feel better, we sauntered over to Leopold's and snagged us some ice cream. After all, sweet dairy goodness cures everything.