First Homework

Do you remember your first homework assignment?  I sure as heck don’t.  As much as this blog is a document to portray myself in a completely fictionalized version of a dotting father, it also serves to give Elijah and Luca a trip down memory lane years from now.  Long after whatever futuristic zombie juice they’re into has erased their brains. 

Last night, as Diana was getting the boys ready for bed, she remembered the Elijah had been given a homework assignment to complete over the weekend.

“Is this the kind of thing they taught you at Berkeley?  To wait until the last second to do your homework?”  I said.

“Maybe you’d like to discuss the quality of my education compared to, where did you go?  The Illinois State Institute of Dishwasher Repair and Advertising?”

Turns out Eli’s assignment was to read a book called “Good Night Gorilla.”  It is actually a neat little book where a gorilla steals a zookeeper’s keys are releases the inhabitants of a zoo, who choose to act cute and cuddly rather than eat each other and eventually get put down by the local authorities.  He read the whole thing aloud without any help.  I did not burst into tears.  Nope.  Not at all.

Eli then had to draw a picture interpreting the book.  He sat down at his little drawing table and crayoned a pretty great scene of the gorilla stealing the keys.  Complete with a bunch of bananas and a tire swing.

It took every ounce of will I had not to shove him aside and do his homework for him. My need for him to be happy and healthy and successful is chemical.  Obsessive.  My every instinct is wrong headed and destructive. 

Luckily, I chose to lie on the floor at his feet, biting his “Goodnight Gorilla” book like a horse bit.  I may have done a little bit of over praising and telling him how much of a genius he is, but let’s focus on the positive here.

Speaking of genius, Diana read him a book by the author David Shannon, who wrote one of Eli’s favorite books, “No No David.” 

Eli read the cover and said, “Hey!  David Shannon!  He wrote ‘No No David.”

He will not be attending The Illinois State Institute of Dishwasher Repair and Advertising.

No, I don’t have a photo of the drawing.  But I do have evidence of two of the WORST haircuts my sons have ever received.  Whooboy.  Whoever from Kidsnips got to these guys was not in a good place, mentally.