As I erased our crazy busy July family calendar and updated it for the month of August, panic ensued. Summer is almost over. All the signs were there- back to school sales, an increase in school emails, my kids and me so easily getting on each other’s nerves because we’ve been together so damn much, my kids not knowing how to hold a pencil or swiping at a book instead of turning a page. We’re fucked. I feel so much guilt because I don’t think I had them read or write enough. During the school year I had grand plans to work on spelling with my daughter, sharpen her math skills, and have her read a bunch of chapter books. For my son, I planned on teaching him how to read, work on his writing, and do simple math skills. Instead, I enrolled them in all these fun summer camps, had them play outside a ton, made them do their laundry, and clean the house when I didn’t feel like it. I know there’s value in all of those things too, but now when I ask them to do anything that has paper, pencil, or books involved, they stare at me like I’m speaking in a different language (which reminds me, I should’ve taught them a little bit of Spanish this summer too…fail). So yes, we had an amazing summer, but they’re summer dumb now.
Yet, we Newtons rally! I believe God led me down the path of college and grad school to teach me how to successfully and efficiently cram. It’s a real skill. I busted out the letter papers for my son and started reviewing basic writing. He cried. I had him practice drawing a person, literally a stick figure. He cried. Unless Kindergarten teaches words that only have the letters U-Z in them and there is no drawing involved in class, my boy just might struggle. However, if Pokémon or Avenger characters are part of the Kindergarten curriculum, he might have a chance. I continue to practice with the basics with him, whether either of us want to or not. Ugh, homework with this guy is going to be a blast. Can kids fail Kindergarten? We shall see.
I had my daughter do her “Words Their Way” papers to help her with her spelling. I think all she did was cut them up, make a mess, and create a word mosaic art project. Very right-brain dominant this child is. I moved on because I had read months ago that if I am too strict with spelling, she will choose simple words to use in her creative writing that are easy to spell, instead of descriptive words. I focused on reading and told her to finish the book she started (probably months ago). She had a decent number of pages to go, maybe 15-20 or so. Within 10 minutes she tells me she is finished, and naturally, I think she’s lying because she just wanted to be done. I started asking her details about what the book was about, and she was answering pretty confidently. I wasn’t about to read the book to check if she was lying or not, but her answers seemed somewhat legit. The questioning, however, began to spiral, and before I knew it, I was having her write a book report on this book. I helped her along the way because her writing and grammar sucked. When I told her this was her first draft, she began to cry. See, this is why I don’t home school. I gave her a nice lecture about how her brain has turned into mush during the summer and now we have to sharpen it again before school starts. I told her, “It’s totally up to you. If you want to be the kid in class that has mush brain, go ahead. If you want to be one of the sharper kids coming into class, then write this final draft. Make a choice. If you choose to write a final draft, give me work that you’re proud of.” More crying. Shit, my grand plans are backfiring big time. At this point, I’m texting Jamie telling him I took it too far again, and when he comes home from lunch, to give Reese a ton of praise for this book report she is going to present to him. Reason 5,239 they love Jamie so much: he gives praises. Reese eventually writes her final draft with my help, and it is good enough. Who knew a whopping 6 sentence paragraph could be so difficult. Jamie gets home, and she eagerly presents her book report to him, and he reads it and gives her lots of praise. Crisis averted. She and Evan go outside to play, and I show him the first and final drafts to show how hard she (we) had to work to get to the final product. He laughs and says, “Ely, this is not what a 3rd grader is going to have to do. I’m a lawyer and I can’t even do this.” So…success? I can’t tell. But that was exhausting, and I’m done making her write book reports for the rest of the summer. Language arts cramming is officially complete. On to math…God help us all.
In terms of the school supplies, I thought I was super amazing because I managed to buy their supplies before we left for vacation. Then I had the kids separate their supplies into their own separate piles. Reading and organization practice, along with teamwork- I’m the best. Jamie reviewed their piles the other night, and he noticed I bought non-washable markers. I have zero desire to go back to Wal-Mart to exchange these markers for washable ones. Instead, I thought it would be a better idea to color all over my hands with the markers to really see how hard it would be to wash the markers off of me. I mean, how different are regular markers from washable ones, right? Turns out, they really aren’t washable after all, and I’m stuck with a lot of marker on my hands and another trip to Wal-Mart scheduled on the calendar. Damn it, so close to being awesome in the school supplies preparedness area. Looks like that will be a last minute cram too.
The calendar looks crazy and I could hear the clock ticking. But as I made potato salad this morning and listened to the kids run around and play so creatively, loud laughs and screams echoing in the house, I thought that maybe we all did okay this summer. At least the kids are still alive and enjoying each other’s company, and making use of the thousands of Amazon boxes we have in the office. At least they have a few life skills under their belt. At least they know a pencil is a writing tool and not a weapon. At least they know the difference between a book and a frisbee, and can throw both pretty well. BUT, I’m Asian, so I can’t completely let go of the academics. I can manage to have the kids do a little reading and writing everyday without crying (I’ll be the one crying on the inside). I can fit in a few more fun days of summer play too. 2 weeks left of summer. I can do this.
The Mundame 