Call me a silly old maid, but I do like a traditional Advent Calendar, definitely no chocolates, just little Mary or the donkey (clip-clop!) peeping out of a window to warm the cockles and give a flicker of meaning to this daft and directionless existence…The children, however, are willing to forego time-honoured tradition in favour of a cheap choc with their cornflakes.
Obviously, I don’t get my way, so we end up with both kinds, and sneer vigorously at each others’ calendars:
‘Chocolates first thing! YUK! Look at my lovely Nativity Scene!’
‘Bully for you, Mummy! You are living in the dark ages – everybody has a chocolate advent calendar these days! We don’t just want boring old pictures. Yum yum - this chocolate is delicious!’
Sometimes I break down and ask them for a bit.
This year, though, I had a plan: I’d ask Bonnie to make the Advent Calendar. That’d get her on side, and the others wouldn’t dream of hurting her feelings by buying chocolate calendars (this bit had me edgy, I’ll admit). We’d gather around her lovely home-made calendar each morning; what heart-warming yuletide image would surprise us today?! The Three Kings? The Star of Gabriel? I couldn’t wait!
‘Bonnie’ I said, pulling up a chair conspiratorially, ‘Would you do me a big favour? Would you make our advent calendar this year? Completely secret from the others mind you….’ She bought it hook, line and sinker, and set to with pens and paper behind a cereal packet at the end of the table…
Josie was tense and shouty, in the middle of GCSE mocks: ‘I know nothing at all. I don’t care how many times you say I’m good at maths, I am not. You are just making me more upset. And I need total quiet; how long are you going to be banging about?’
So I went away to offer Maddy some guidance with her crucial science test (GET UP!!). She’d flunked the previous one by being in her flute lesson instead (‘Wh-wh-what? WHAT?? Didn’t you say anything to your teacher?’ ‘You want me to learn the flute don’t you?’). I spoke crossly to the motionless lump in her bed: ‘You are not to leave the house until you have revised all thirteen chapters of the Science Revision Guide!’ Excellent – everybody sorted! Now I was free to go Christmas shopping.
Two hours later, frozen with indecision and full of loathing for Christmas, I returned home, to find a house buzzing with activity: Alan was under the covers with the radio memorising weather forecasts in case I tried to switch our so-called heating off; Alfie was sitting on a blank sheet of homework, googling ’Thirty ways to annoy your little sister’; Josie was weeping in the bath (‘All this work is killing me!’); and all that remained of Maddy was a note explaining that, unfortunately, she’d had to go straight to her sleepover party, otherwise she would have missed kick-off and therefore a tiny fraction of the TV and junk consumption planned for the next twelve hours. She was now uncontactable because her phone was in a bowl of rice(obviously) to draw out the moisture that had got inside it when she dropped it down the loo. But don’t worry - she’ll do all the revision whenever she shows up tomorrow, full of get-go after four hours’ sleep. Only dear Bonnie – never any trouble from her – was engaged in anything remotely constructive, still diligently drawing Advent Calendar pictures behind the cereal packet. I mounted her lovely little pictures, placing the stable scene in the 24th December window with a frisson of excitement.
Best laid plans and all that – sadly, my Advent Calendar scheme was scuppered at the eleventh hour; Bonnie was given a chocolate Advent Calendar at Brownies! (thank you so much, Brown Owl). It was only a matter of time until the rest of the children had chocolate calendars too…
Still, we all gathered round on December 1st for the Grand Opening of the first window of Bonnie’s calendar... and...there it was! MARY HOLDING BABY JESUS!!!
Bonnie screamed: ‘MUMMMMMY!!! THAT’S THE LAST PICTURE!!! NOW EVERYONE’S SEEN BABY JESUS!!! YOU’VE DONE IT ALL WRONG – YOU’VE RUINED THE WHOLE THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’
I sat down. Oh dear. ‘Can someone give me a chocolate, please?’
Showing posts with label homework. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homework. Show all posts
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Saturday, 16 October 2010
Take It Easy!
Sundays. Homework - Aaaaaaargh!!! I had my breezy homework voice at the ready today: ‘Alfie, can you get your homework out, please?’ He clutched his head with his hands. ‘OH NO NO NO!’ and threw himself headlong onto the kitchen floor where he remained. ‘Get your bag please.’ I was terse. He didn’t move. ‘Bag Alfie!’ ‘I can’t reach it…oh.. oh..’
Eventually stage one was complete; he got the bag, and I took out the homework out (it’s only fair). We were delighted to find THREE pieces of homework for Alfie to immerse himself in. If he needed a little help, all the better, I could find out what he was up to at school: fantastic!
First up, spellings (heavy phonetic slant (funetick slarnt), but we have to choose our battles). Next, oh joy, make sentences out of them! What with a) thinking-and-coming-up-with-nothing b) writing Mummy’s ‘suggestion’ and c) rubbing it out and then writing it in English (including an interval for throwing it across the room), I was more than happy to let Alfie knock out one long and meaningless sentence with all twenty spellings in it, and if the teacher didn't like it, they could see me outside.
Maddy was slumped in her dressing gown (it was only noon) snipping pancake into one centimetre squares, arranging them in patterns on her plate, sprinkling teensy bits of sugar onto each one, then selecting one at a time to pop into her mouth, an activity designed to make breakfast last until steam came out of my ears, there being no escape from homework today. She’d spent most of the previous day loosely ‘doing her art’, resulting in one single (but very nice) pencil line, several back-episodes of Ugly Betty (‘I’ve got to catch up’), some internet purchases (‘You want me to get Daddy a birthday present, don’t you?’), and a chocolate cake (wholesome activity, wrong time). ‘Maddy, can you finish your art now?’ I ground my teeth. ‘Oh, I rubbed it out’ she said dreamily, ‘I didn’t like it.’ ‘WHAT??? That was a whole day's work!! Well get on with something else, come on! Just tell me if you’re stuck..’ So she called me after a bit: ‘If you mix hydrochloric acid and zinc hydroxide, what do you get?’ ‘Well, let me see..’ I said, ‘Er, hold on..zinc hydroxide..is that..um..I’m sure we can um..have you got a book…?’ but her phone was jingling, and took priority of course, so I returned my attention to Alfie.
The slow, even breaths and closed eyes told me that he was keen to begin his ‘research’ task; ‘find and draw a ‘Sedar Plate’’. ‘Look it up in a book first’ I said (‘We’re not allowed to, my teacher said we had to use the internet’). I dragged him over to Alan’s awful Childrens’ Encyclopedia Brittanica 1952 edition, stacked for easy access behind the old videos. ‘Use the index!’ I chirruped. He half-heartedly nudged at the pages with one hand so he could still suck his thumb. ‘It’s too heavy, it hurts..’ he whined ‘Alfie, make an effort – use two hands you silly boy!’.
I cut my losses and skimmed the Very Lengthy History of Judaism Not Including Sedar Plates while he groaned on the floor (‘Why can’t I use the computer like everyone else?’), interest levels slipping sub-zero, then I rocketed up the stairs to fetch our fancy new ‘Wow’ picture encyclopedia: ‘Ssssssssssssssedar – what letter do you think it starts with….?’ I reminded him how the alphabet went and he managed to find the S’s, when suddenly my heart skipped a beat because there, in the index, was ‘Sedar Plate’ as clear as day! He turned up the colour photo of it, annotated, and I could hold back no more: ‘IT’S THERE! IT’S THERE IN THE BOOK! WE’VE FOUND IT!’ I yelled, hysterical, tearful. Josie came running ‘What’s the matter? What happened?’ ‘Shall we photocopy it?’ shouted Alfie, riding on my brilliant mood. ‘No, your teacher is definitely going to want a drawing of this lovely photo, labelled by hand!’ I said, and galloped off to fetch pen and paper. ‘Take it easy, Mummy’ he said, ‘you need a rest from all this homework!
Eventually stage one was complete; he got the bag, and I took out the homework out (it’s only fair). We were delighted to find THREE pieces of homework for Alfie to immerse himself in. If he needed a little help, all the better, I could find out what he was up to at school: fantastic!
First up, spellings (heavy phonetic slant (funetick slarnt), but we have to choose our battles). Next, oh joy, make sentences out of them! What with a) thinking-and-coming-up-with-nothing b) writing Mummy’s ‘suggestion’ and c) rubbing it out and then writing it in English (including an interval for throwing it across the room), I was more than happy to let Alfie knock out one long and meaningless sentence with all twenty spellings in it, and if the teacher didn't like it, they could see me outside.
Maddy was slumped in her dressing gown (it was only noon) snipping pancake into one centimetre squares, arranging them in patterns on her plate, sprinkling teensy bits of sugar onto each one, then selecting one at a time to pop into her mouth, an activity designed to make breakfast last until steam came out of my ears, there being no escape from homework today. She’d spent most of the previous day loosely ‘doing her art’, resulting in one single (but very nice) pencil line, several back-episodes of Ugly Betty (‘I’ve got to catch up’), some internet purchases (‘You want me to get Daddy a birthday present, don’t you?’), and a chocolate cake (wholesome activity, wrong time). ‘Maddy, can you finish your art now?’ I ground my teeth. ‘Oh, I rubbed it out’ she said dreamily, ‘I didn’t like it.’ ‘WHAT??? That was a whole day's work!! Well get on with something else, come on! Just tell me if you’re stuck..’ So she called me after a bit: ‘If you mix hydrochloric acid and zinc hydroxide, what do you get?’ ‘Well, let me see..’ I said, ‘Er, hold on..zinc hydroxide..is that..um..I’m sure we can um..have you got a book…?’ but her phone was jingling, and took priority of course, so I returned my attention to Alfie.
The slow, even breaths and closed eyes told me that he was keen to begin his ‘research’ task; ‘find and draw a ‘Sedar Plate’’. ‘Look it up in a book first’ I said (‘We’re not allowed to, my teacher said we had to use the internet’). I dragged him over to Alan’s awful Childrens’ Encyclopedia Brittanica 1952 edition, stacked for easy access behind the old videos. ‘Use the index!’ I chirruped. He half-heartedly nudged at the pages with one hand so he could still suck his thumb. ‘It’s too heavy, it hurts..’ he whined ‘Alfie, make an effort – use two hands you silly boy!’.
I cut my losses and skimmed the Very Lengthy History of Judaism Not Including Sedar Plates while he groaned on the floor (‘Why can’t I use the computer like everyone else?’), interest levels slipping sub-zero, then I rocketed up the stairs to fetch our fancy new ‘Wow’ picture encyclopedia: ‘Ssssssssssssssedar – what letter do you think it starts with….?’ I reminded him how the alphabet went and he managed to find the S’s, when suddenly my heart skipped a beat because there, in the index, was ‘Sedar Plate’ as clear as day! He turned up the colour photo of it, annotated, and I could hold back no more: ‘IT’S THERE! IT’S THERE IN THE BOOK! WE’VE FOUND IT!’ I yelled, hysterical, tearful. Josie came running ‘What’s the matter? What happened?’ ‘Shall we photocopy it?’ shouted Alfie, riding on my brilliant mood. ‘No, your teacher is definitely going to want a drawing of this lovely photo, labelled by hand!’ I said, and galloped off to fetch pen and paper. ‘Take it easy, Mummy’ he said, ‘you need a rest from all this homework!
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