The last day of school before the holidays was the sixteenth of December. Normally during breaks from school, I will have the kids do some sort of work to keep their minds going..at the very least I will make them read for thirty minutes a day. However, I will fully admit that by Friday, the sixteenth, I was completely done and over the school thing. Chalk it up to my lack of sleep, missing Dave, the boys being difficult in the mornings, or struggling with Anthony to get him to do his homework; when we returned home that day, the backpacks were hung up in the cubby, and I honestly did not give them a second thought until yesterday morning when it was time to pull them off the hooks, as he kids finally went back to school.(YAY!!!)
It was seven-thirty in the morning, and surprisingly, things were running so smoothly; almost like a well oiled machine. For the first time this school year (since the first week of school), I was not begging one of the boys to hurry up, I wasn't desperately looking for one of Hunter's shoes that he failed to put in his cubby the day before, and I wasn't dropping them off at seven-fifty-eight when the tardy bell rings at eight o'clock. I have to say that dropping them off late is awful. I liken it to the "walk of shame" that you hear of some girls doing in college. You have to get out of your car and physically walk your child to the office, and then give an explanation as to why they are late. God forbid that you, yourself are running late and leave the house sans make-up, hair pulled back in a pony tail, wearing sweats, t-shirt, Ugg boots..all covered up in an oversized cardigan as if to hide the fact that you look like death warmed over. What makes it worse is when the principal sends home a nasty gram telling you that your child has "X" number of tardies, and proceeds to scold you as to the importance of your child being on time.(Yes, I can attest to this as I have received this letter.)
Nonetheless, yesterday this was not the case. The boys were ready to go without complaint, with shoes in place by seven thirty-five. You will never know how happy this made me. However, that emotion was quickly dissolved when Anthony opened his back pack only to find ten pages of math that were assigned for each day of vacation...10 PAGES! I was mortified. I never looked in their bags the entire winter break. I never made them do anything remotely close to school work aside from reading.
Alas, I completely own up to this. I dropped the ball. Do I believe that Anthony may have known about the homework?..Yes. However, he is eight, and I don't expect him to exercise that sort of responsibility yet. He is a child, and therefore still thinks like a child. There is a reason that children cannot babysit until they are twelve or thirteen..they lack responsibility. It would be different if he was eleven or twelve and knew better. Having said that, ultimately, I am his parent and regardless of his age, it is my responsibility to make sure that things like this don't happen, and I fully admit that--I slipped up.
At any rate, I sent him to school without the homework. I'm guessing that I was not the only parent who did not push the homework as Anthony never said a word regarding the fact that he was "the only one who didn't turn in homework." Anthony is always very good at letting me know when I've messed up. So much so, I'm thinking that of my four kids, he would be the best suited to be a priest because he's definitely good at dishing out guilt. With that in mind, I'm not too worried about my recent short coming in the Mom department. However, in the future I will most certainly make a point to check backpacks when the kids have a break from school.
