I am also very proud to say that as of tomorrow, I will have completed one entire quarter of school in my maternal capacity. For those of you who are sitting out there shaking your head and thinking no way could you ever homeschool, let me tell you something: Homeschooling is sooooo much easier than regular school, or at least it was for us. I think the reason for this can be traced back to one major factor: homework! When you're a homeschooling mom and an assignment strikes you as tedious, pointless, or downright stupid, you can exercise your homeschoolerly perogative and blow it off. No such luck when the assignment is given out by a teacher (who presumably does not view it as tedious, pointless, or downright stupid). Nope, under those circumstances you are stuck at your dining room table, trying to be supportive in the face of much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Truth be told, you are often in fact the wailer and/or tooth-gnasher. Or at least, I am.
I was cleaning files off my antique computer recently in preparation for my annual hard-drive reformatting crisis, and I came across some images that illustrate perfectly why I should be kept as far away from homework as possible. But first, the backstory:
Surely you have all heard of Flat Stanley, right? He's a character in a book who is smooshed flat (falling bulletin board, I think) and is therefore able to travel to different places in an envelope. Somewhere along the way, some teacher got the idea of having students create their own little flat people whom they would then send out on various travels, which they (the students, not the inanimate "people") would document on posterboard. Very clever. What could be better than a homework assignment you foist off on friends and family?
Somewhere along the way, this became a rite of early elementary school passage similar to the loss of the first tooth, and now EVERYBODY is doing it. Little flatlings are winging their way around the world. I know--I posed with some woman's grandson's Flat Stanley in a restaurant in Rome.
Annabelle encountered Flat Stanley in first grade in Texas. I encouraged her to send her Flat Stanley to my sister, who I knew would put her heart and soul into showing a paper boy the wonders of central Florida. Annabelle, however, was adamant--her Flat Stanley was going to be sent to a child. (Sorry, Jenny.) This presented me with a problem. Most of my friends who have children also have lives, jobs, and other obligations that might get in the way of their hostessing the Stan-Man in Pearl Mesta fashion. No, Stanley needed to go to somebody who would be able to let the child handle the project without turning it into her own personal mission.
We (meaning me, because let's face it--first graders don't go to the post office) wound up sending it to a friend who I think does a really good job of letting her children live their own lives without excessive micromanagement. I resigned myself to the fact that Annabelle's classmates' flat travelers were going to go off on exotic jaunts to Vegas, Disney, and possibly Europe, while hers would be going to the playground and maybe the library or the mall.
We (meaning me, because let's face it--first graders aren't slaves to the calendar) started getting nervous as deadline day approached and Stan had yet to be returned in the postage paid envelope that we (meaning me, because let's face it--first graders just don't think of these things) had provided for him. We (meaning me, because by this point Annabelle had pretty much forgotten all about Stanley and was focused on her Neopets) didn't want to nag, but finally we (OK, do you get the theme here? Me, me, me, it's all about me!) sent out some feelers.
Turns out my friend had done such a good job of delegating Stanley to her daughter that he had gone AWOL. I told Annabelle's teacher about this unfortunate turn of events, and she was very understanding. Apparently, a Stanley or 2 go missing every year. "What most families do," she suggested, "is have the child make a new one and then just take it around San Antonio. You could take it to Sea World, Fiesta Texas, the Alamo . . . "
I don't want to sound like a Bad Mom, but at that point in my life, I had Other Obligations. For example, I was taking a guide dog puppy around San Antonio and cleaning up after her when she pooped not once, not twice, but THREE times in one trip to the mall. There was no time in my schedule for escorting two-dimensional tourists around town. Sorry.
Through the miracle of modern technology, however, I was saved from the shame of having my daughter turn in a Wanted poster for her Flat Stanley as her project. I had some digital photos that Fred had taken on a trip to Australia a couple years earlier, so I simply scanned Stan II into the computer and digitally inserted him into the scenes. Look, it's Flat Stanley on the Great Barrier Reef!
And here he is with Fred and a koala:
We printed out the photos, and Annabelle attached them (as well as some Australian-themed stickers, diecuts, and coins) to her posterboard. Voila! Flat Stanley was done.
I, however, just couldn't stop. I was seized by a Flat Stanley mania of sorts. Look, it's Flat Stanley crossing the Delaware with Washington:
Corporal Stanley planting the flag on Iwo Jima:
And my personal favorite, the Apostle Stan at the Last Supper:
I think given my history I have done an admirable job of dealing with homework for the past 9 weeks. Can I have a sticker?
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