Martha Stewart I Am Not

My two oldest kids are "in school," placed in parentheses because we're talking half-day kindergarten for Aidan and a total of six hours of preschool per week for Taylor. This is not REAL school, right? I just have to teach them things like being on time and laying out clothes and backpacks the night before...but we're not into homework territory yet or anything like that.

Sort of.

Aidan gets a small amount of homework every Friday that has to be returned by Wednesday, and in a manner that makes me wonder how she is my child, she comes home every Friday and does her homework as soon as she walks in the door. She returns her homework folder on Monday, two days before it is due. I cannot relate to this as I was the student finishing up the last few math questions right before the bell rang, but I am thankful it is her personality. Hopefully it will stick when she gets older.

This week, my kids both brought home essentially the same assignment (from two different schools): decorate a turkey as a family. Both kids were give cardboard turkeys to cut out and then decorate.

After we ate lunch Saturday, Terry went to work and we pulled out the turkeys and any crafty stuff I could find. I have friends who are very good at this type of thing, and therefore, in my mind, are excellent mothers. It is not my area of strength, but I wanted to give it my best shot.

Taylor decided his turkey needed to be a Rock Star and Aidan went with a ballerina. After almost three hours, these are what we ended up with. They may not win any awards, but the kids love them, and I realized later that although we made a huge mess of my kitchen, we also had three hours of creating and laughing and talking about all kinds of stuff. I'll help them with homework for years to come if it results in those things!