Last night at 7:48 pm (bedtime is at 8:00 pm) Ella informed us that her large, end-of-year project, presentation on Egypt was the next day. After much prodding and verbal meandering we found out that she has known about said project for a MONTH. And even had a research outline grid she was supposed to have filled in as she prepared. Well, of course, no grid, no plan, no time left. She needed a written report, a poster and flash cards. I freaked out. There was much Mommy yelling. Then, we buckled down.
Luckily, in her misdirected thought process, she had borrowed another child's research grid (who was done with HER project ages ago) and brought it home. I was able to find the same grid online and print on off for Ella. BUT, one of Ella's research sources had to be a physical book. Now, you're thinking "Egypt?...Easy peasy? What did she choose? The pyramids? Mummification? Pharaoh?" Nope. She chose Ma'at. Mmmmmm.....yeah, I've never heard of her either.
I really debated letting Ella fry and get an F for this. But then I reconsidered (more on WHY later) and headed to the library while Matt put the other kids to bed and started the online research with Ella.
Within the hour we had collected six library books, an on-hand blank poster board, and the Silhouette Cameo and had mostly finished up. The good news is she had actually written some of this report on our computer earlier in the month and saved it. Because I'm a Nazi-Mommy, I forced her to look up the spelling of every misspelled word in her document.
After she headed to bed (a bit more than an hour late) Matt and I sat at the table, mounting her hand-drawn pictures of a vulture and an Onk symbol onto black card stock, reminiscing about how many times this happened during our school years. Matt's dad was the typist for his family and my Mom was for ours. I told Matt about a time I was quietly sitting at our Dining Room table, working on a poster and my Mom walked in and went ca-raze-zee. "I can't believe you! Why does every - single - thing have to be left to the last minute?! Now I have to drop everything and help you for your deadline tomorrow and I have a lot to do! I am SO sick of this!!!" To which I replied, "But Mom, this report isn't due for three weeks." We laughed and laughed because you can't blame her. It was the first (and probably only) time I ever started a project on my own sooner than the night before its due date.
I guess, in the end, that driving to the Library after 8pm to scour the shelves for kid's books on Ancient Egyptian Goddesses is just karma for the many, many, MANY times my own mother bailed me out. And for the many times that Matt's parents did the same for him. It is a childhood rite of passage and a parental rite of passage that we have just dipped our toe into for the first of many times to come.
Ella headed out to the bus stop this morning with her finished poster tucked in between to pieces of cardboard and wrapped in a plastic bag. She had screwed up, but we fixed it together. And that, in and of itself, is a lesson I want her to remember.
4 comments
This NEVER happened at my house....but only because my parents were gifted the three most responsible children ever - something I remind mom of every time I complain about my kids doing something crazy and she says, "You kids never did that..." lol
Great story! I surprised myself recently when my 11 year old had tryouts for a soccer league and she forgot her ball. I refused to drive home and pick it up for her, eventhough it was only about two miles away. I start wondering if that's the right thing to do or if I was just doing what had been done to me when I was a kid.
This happened to us about a month ago. Wesley had a mobile due on Greece that he decided to tell us about as he was climbing into bed. I had him help me for an hour or so until he was falling asleep in his chair and then I sent him to bed. I stayed up until about 1:30am finishing his project.
The next morning, when he saw his completed mobile, he started CRYING, and not in a "Thank you, Mom! This is wonderful!" kind of way. He was crying because it wasn't exactly how he had envisioned it. It took everything in me not to rip the mobile to shreds and send him to school empty handed!!!
Ahhh, the joys of parenthood.
This exact thing has happened to us with three children, and went thru the same parenting angst of "should we help?" and end up doing most of the project.
In the end (it only happened ONCE with each of our kids)we sent them to school with a letter they had written to the teacher saying they "forgot" about the assignment and asking for extra time. In all three cases the teacher gave them extra time (with some of the grade subtracted) and they did the research project themselves over the next day or two and handed it in. It taught them all a valuable lesson and they were able to do the work themselves with minimal help from hubby and I.
Interestingly, I do find today that teachers require the kids to have parts of projects done and turned in (such as outline-first draft-sources-etc) on a weekly basis to prevent what happened to Ella happening. Because I'll bet it happens A LOT :)
Isn't parenting FUN???
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