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Absence does not make the heart grow fonder
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Why does it say 'bring it' in the left bottom corner?
The first (half) week of school is over, and suddenly the weekend feels like the weekend again. My daughter is in a better mood, I’m in a better mood, what’s not to like? There are few things that will make kids long for school as much as three months without. Not that she doesn’t love spending time with fabulous me, but, well…you know. Enough is enough.
But things are not so simple; with school comes homework. A lot of homework, and Isabella hates it with a passion. On day one, she comes home and throws her backpack in a corner: time for phase one of operation “destroy happiness.” Day two means she does her Hebrew homework with a long face, skips two of the four questions, and has to be threatened with the following interaction:
Me: Is it your birthday?
Isa: yes.
Me: Do you want presents?
Isa: Ye-es.
Me: Well, you’re not getting any unless you do your homework, so there.
She finishes her Hebrew, and claims she doesn’t have any English homework; I take her word for it. I know, that’s not smart, but it seemed reasonable on the second day of school. The next day I go in myself to teach a class, and see Isabella’s general studies teacher. “Hi!” She says, “Isabella left her homework at school yesterday!”
One hour later, Isabella comes down with a mysterious illness, and has to be taken home. She’s given herself half a degree of fever, and under the new regulations (it might be swine flu!) she cannot stay at school.
I tell her to go straight to bed, do not pass Go, do not receive $200. “But I’m hungry,” she says, and: “Can I sleep on one of the couches?”
I respond that if she feels good enough to eat, she feels good enough to do homework or clean her room. She goes to bed and sleeps for four hours.
Later on, we get distracted by Shabbes dinner and party preparations, the grandparents arrive, stuff happens, and before I know it, it’s Sunday 6 pm and we haven’t even opened her backpack. Trust me, it’s not all her fault; I am just as forgetful when it comes to homework, and I often don’t realize it’s missing until the very end of the weekend. The difference is, I feel guilty about that. Isabella just feels slightly annoyed if I remember in time.
She does her general studies; it’s kind of a big stack, so I help her a little bit. Okay, I help her a lot, because I’m avoiding a rather large pile of laundry that needs to be put away. Isn’t it great when you get to be a bad and a good role model all at once?
“Where is your Hebrew folder?” I ask.
“I don’t have any,” she says. “All I had to do was sing a song and I already did that. Upstairs. Earlier.
I don’t believe her, but I don’t have any way to prove she’s lying. That the Hebrew folder is not in her bag means nothing; her cubby at school is a great place to leave your homework, if you’re so inclined. All I can do is put her teachers on speed dial, and stop by the school tomorrow to check up on her.
Isabella has missed her teachers enormously over the summer. Maybe one of these days, she will figure out that those same teachers will kick her behind into the next county if she doesn’t start taking her homework seriously. At least, I hope they will, because my child has a mother who can’t seem to get a handle on this particular problem.
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