Working at home and homework
Working at Home
I’ve taken up birdwatching, apparently. I looked out my office window and saw one of these yesterday. Of course, I didn’t know what it was, at first and had to look around to identify it. Sure enough, when it took off, spreading unbelieveably wide, blue wings; that was the clincher.
It’s strange to live in an area that’s mostly suburbia, with smatterings of wildlife preserve in between.
Homework
We’ve been briefly back to normal, with both kids in the house, work, homework and housework occupying all waking moments. My son is chipping away at a poetry assignment that is worthy of the semester-long assignments doled out by my poetry teacher in college. Right now he’s trying to eek out a limerick. Under pressure, it takes all the fun out of it.
He leaves tomorrow for an NYC band trip; hence the pressure and last minute poetry crunch. He’s also sorely disappointed, as we’ve put the kibosh on his flying to STL for 24 hours to go to prom. We just couldn’t wrap our heads around it. Who sends a 16 year old 800 miles to rent a tux and go to a dance? Who spends that kind of money on a 24 hour trip? Not us.
It’s not even so much about the money; we want him to be able to go and spend a week visiting all his friends this summer. Prom, with all the attendant expectations and pressures, is a bit much when you’re 800 miles away from your parents, and only in 10th grade. I feel badly (as the “softie” parent, I’m usually the wish granter, the smoother of paths) but know that this is the right way to go. My husband, in attempt to calm the angst, offered up the consolation prize of concert tickets. Since our son still hasn’t forgiven us for moving, he can just add this to the pile of things about which to be angry.
It may help the poetry.