Monday, August 18, 2008

9pm on any given Sunday

What is it about the 9:00 hour on Sunday evening that reminds kids (read: teenagers especially but not exclusively) everywhere that they still need their moms?  

9pm: "Mom?  Can you help me with my homework?"
Mom:  "Hmm, didn't get that done yet, huh?"
Kid:  "Seriously, can you just help me?"
Mom:  "Sure. What do you have to do?"
Kid:  "Two papers."
Mom:  Blank stare followed by "Did you say TWO PAPERS?"
Kid:  "Yeah, well, pretty much. Well, one is just a poem [at this point mom is remembering the last time she had to help kid write a poem, it was not an easy or short process...] and the other is a paragraph about the American Dream and what it means."
Mom:  Thinking the paragraph might not be too bad - and at least it's not really 2 whole papers - but the poem might kill us.  "Ok well, let's get started."

10:30pm:
After a long evening of "your ideas are all stupid!" and "just HELP me" and "just write it down then I'll put it in my own words" followed up with "great! Do it yourself then" and "I've already graduated from high school so this is for you to do" and "think of how much less stress you'd have if you'd started this earlier" --- 

Kid:  "I don't even care if it's long enough, it's close enough. I'm going to bed."
Mom:  "Great way to start the year.  Can you please bring your planner AND write in it tomorrow?"
Kid:  "Maybe.  Night mom.  Love you."
Mom:  "Night, love you."

And let the school year begin!

3 comments:

Sue said...

Ummm, I think I know who "kid" is. I think "kid" aske me for help with his homework last year too and decided my ideas were dumb too. However I did write some amazingly clever limericks for Megan as I recall. She never did tell me what my grade was but I'm pretty sure it was an "A" or possibly an "A+". Those limericks might just have been the extra points that got her into BYU. So don't give up. "Kid" might get desperate enough to use some of your dumb ideas.

Steve said...

I was there the night you were helping him with that. I thought it was kind of funny :P

Tiffany said...

That's awesome. I love the part about how you said you had already graduated from high school. Bet that one went over well. ha!