Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Why I'm going to hate homework

Joey is in preschool and his class is learning about dinosaurs. Together, they made a paper-mache egg and later a stuffed animal dinosaur "hatched" from it. Each student gets to take "Platey" (the stegosaurus) home with him/her after their "snack day" and they are supposed to take care of it. Monday was our day to bring Platey home.

Mind you-I had no idea any of this was going on. When I ask Joey what he did in school, his answer is usually the same: "I played". I never hear about what's actually going on in class unless I happen to eavesdrop on the little girls chatting with their moms after school. In the last 2 months, I have concluded that girls tell all and boys tell nothing.

Anyway, between Monday afternoon and this morning (Wed) we somehow lost Platey. Joey could have cared less that the dinosaur was missing so he hemmed and hawed and lifted one pillow on the couch, poorly acting like he was looking for it. I was already slightly panicked that we wouldn't find the creature in time, but his lackadaisical attitude only added to my frustration. I have learned that if Joey thinks something is interesting, he'll give it 110%. If he doesn't like it, he will barely squeak out a 1% effort. He thinks the whole Platey idea is lame. When I asked him why he never mentioned it to me before his snack day, his response was: "It's kind of stupid, Mom. I mean, we built the egg, the teacher put Platey in it and now she wants us to believe it hatched and we have to take care of it?!"

When put this way, I do see his point.

The 2 days the thing was home with him, Laura showed more interest in it then Joey did. I never saw him play with it once. So where did it go???

In the end, we headed out to school without Platey. Joey had to tell the teacher that he couldn't find Platey while I stood there feeling like an inferior mom because we lost it. I then rushed home to search the house again so the next child in line wouldn't be disappointing that they weren't able to take Platey home with them.

Laura and I entered the house and I sighed and said, "Oh Laura. Where is Platey?" to which she replied, "I know Mommy" and she walked over to her training potty, lifted the lid and low and behold, there he was.

All I can say is: how fitting.

1 comment:

Lori said...

That's hilarious! I see Joey's point though. There are a lot of things done in school that are fairly contrived, I'm afraid to say. This won't be the last one where both he and you are saying, "huh?"

And you know my Jack.... so I've been there and I'm still livin' it. :)