Of School Projects to be completed....

The worst part about being a parent is just when you think you're done with school and irksome projects, bang comes your kid in school and a deluge of project work that has your tongue hanging out in shock because, damn, you did your own projects in school, the parents never even knew what you were supposed to send in. And there is no way the projects that these children get could ever be done by themselves without efficient parental supervision. Therefore, when the brat comes home skipping and jumping, with a note in the diary which tells me that said project as specified in the workbook needs to submitted by a specified date, mamma starts hyperventilating.

No, it is not lack of creativity. It is lack of will and motivation. In the distant past, when mamma was in pigtails and short skirts, she was what was known as a 'creative' child. She would be summoned to decorate classrooms and blackboards for special events in school. She had the mandate to make decorative flowers from crepe papers which looked uncannily like roses, minus the fragrance, she would be called on to create scaled down models of Greek arenas and windmills and science projects and such like. And she enjoyed doing so. The brat, unfortunately, has nary a creative bone in his body. That is not his genetic inheritance from mamma for sure.

Therefore mamma is the one in charge of getting the projects ready and in submitable shape. The past week has mamma running between shoots and interviews every single day. Therefore a weighing scale to be made has been languishing in the To Do list for a while now.

Thus it came to pass that the brat came back home with a face as dark as thunderclouds."Mamma," he spat out, in venom steeped tones, "I godda Zero in my projekt becos yu din do it. Wai yu din make my waving skail?"

Mamma's heart sank like the corpse with the millstone tied to it and tossed into stormy waters. Yes, mamma is also the queen of bad metaphors.

She ran out shrieking into the stores to get the requirements for said neglected and much deferred project. Two plastic plates. Cord. A wooden ruler. And set about making the damn weighing scale. The brat sat back, hands behind his head, and feet crossed like the nawab he undoubtedly was in a previous birth.

"Did you do it poperly?" he asked with scathing glance once it was done. He lifted it in manner of quality control inspector and looked at it minutely, "Mamma, dis waving skail is leaning to one side."

Mamma resisted the urge to smite him one on his insolent mouth, consoled herself by giving him the raised eyebrow and stern glance treatment and put said weighing scale into his bag, and roundly cursed the damn system roundly for putting parents through such torture. And got back to her needlework box to work on the Pinocchio costume that the brat has to wear to school for dress up day on Monday.