Friday, February 20, 2009

The ultimate labor-saving device is an eraser.

Chas hates to color. I mean, really, really hates to color. So today as he did his homework -- writing three words that begin with "J" and then drawing those things -- he was dismayed when I told him he had to color his drawings. He asked me why he had to and I told him it was part of his homework.

Instantly he flipped over to the instruction page for the homework packet. He looked at it intently for a couple of minutes, then looked up at me, pointed to the page and asked, "Where do you see 'color'?" Indeed, the directions did not say he needed to color his drawings. But I persisted.

So he grudgingly turned back to his page, where he had an intricately pencil drawing of a jet, a jar full of jellybeans with more falling in and a plain jar and began erasing the jellybean jar. He then drew in a single jellybean and colored it and the second jar angry red. By which I mean, he made no attempt to disguise his disgust for the requirement by doing something like staying remotely in the lines. "Less coloring," he said when I asked why he got rid of his lovely drawing of jellybeans cascading into a jar.

This is kindergarten homework. What the heck am I going to do when he's in 8th grade????