School's Out at My House

I’m not sure I’m thrilled about closing up the school year. On one hand it means no more late night corrections & memos to “pencil-happy” children to "stop doodling pictures of stick people doing the tango in the margins of your Arithmetic", on the other hand it means…..well, you know what it means, it means no more school.

Not that I’m a stranger to ad-libbing, but it is kind of nice to rely on books to keep your kid still for a few hours. But now there’s talk of art projects, cooking projects, inventions & experiments. I know, I know, what kind of a home schooling parent are you if you don’t like creativity & the tendency to expand on the given material? Well, I like creativity just fine, when it’s something I do PART TIME!

But all day loooooooong? OK, have you ever seen me panic? (Don’t answer that question, obviously you have) well…..I’m not panicking, I’m just thinking about organizing the school shelves, putting together the kids’ portfolio pages & worst yet sifting through the “Art Drawer”.

Ah, the Art Drawer. What started off as a handy place to put half-finished coloring pages & color pencils & extra erasers has digressed considerably.

Let’s just call a spade a spade, if you’ve been to my house you’ve no doubt unearthed the “Art Drawer” and gotten that uneasy feeling that you’re staring into the bottomless pit of which there is no return & Satan will be falling perpetually through crayons & glue stick lids for 1000 years. But let’s be honest, everyone has an “Art Drawer” in their house. If you’ve lost anything at my house, a sock, wad of play dough or one of your small children, that’s where you’d most likely find it.

My favorite part of organizing this drawer is, of course, throwing things away. This may be a rare hereditary condition passed down (obviously) from my mother’s side. It’s quite simple really, there is no greater joy than throwing away as many things as you can in the shortest period of time. I have fond memories of when my Dad would come tearing into our room picking up Lego pieces and shouting “Don’t you know LEGOS ARE MONEEEYYYYY!!!”, followed closely by Mom on the warpath with the garbage bag.

I’m still waiting for the day I have a broken stereo so I can give it the same fate Dad’s poor stereo got when he unwisely left the house one day when Mom was on the rampage. Har har!! Who can forget, hey Dad?

Well, it must be done & this year... I’ll do it in style by getting my kids to help me with their own portfolios & choosing what artwork to keep & what to trash. And somehow or another we’ll have a successful summer, though I loose every last one of my frizzy hairs. (Which would not really be such a bad thing) Ideas are welcome.

Till I update again, let me leave you with this one thought:

What does a crowd of Japanese people looking up the sky say about the weather?

“Oh my gyaaaa, It’s bery crowdy today!”

That was brought to you by “Al-&-co’s-corny-dinner-joke-creations”. Sadly, there’s more where that came from!