Elementary School Beatdowns

I am not Catholic, but tonight I thought about Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

You see, tonight I realized I have something in common with the favored one: we are both Moms of boys. Boys who don't always listen to their Moms the way they should.

What brought this on? Working with my child on an explorer presentation. A three-part presentation, to be exact. A presentation, I explained early last week, that needed to be done on Monday night so it could be practiced and tweaked on Tuesday and dress-rehearsed on Wednesday in anticipation of a Thursday afternoon delivery to all the students, their parents and his teacher.

This was THE project at school for the past two to three weeks during History hour. "Research" was being done during the school day. Note cards were being written. Facts were being impressed upon little brains. Education was taking place.

From a week ago Monday through to yesterday, I was repeatedly told it was "all good".

Yeah.
Uh huh.
Right.

It turned out that the "research" and resulting note cards completed at school had no relationship with chronological, logical, or sensible order. They bounced from topic to topic and time to time like Pooh's friend, Tigger, on crack. And these note cards were the basis for the entire two-to-four-minute performance.

So, tonight, the night before the day of the presentation, the note cards were painstakingly reconfigured to their proper order and sentence structure. Not Monday or any night prior to that, as I had so sweetly suggested. No. Twenty hours before the presentation.

The "board", part two of the three part mini-series of torture, was to include a picture of the assigned explorer, a map of his route, and a timeline. This part of the assignment was partially done because we had forced son to find/print a picture last Friday night. The following Monday, after much gnashing of teeth, a map was discovered. And the timeline? Miraculously threw itself together once the note cards were reconstructed.

Much tape, background paper, and patience from darling Daddy, later we were at T-minus 18 hours and counting.

Part three? Optional costume. We're talking about a 1500's explorer, people! Last time I checked at Party City, they were overflowing with "Sleazy girl nurses", "Jason" from "Friday the 13th", and the ubiquitous mask of a "Clown gone homicidal"*. Sir Francis Drake? No.

So I settled for a Gothic vampire costume with a removable cape that resembled the lace collared, lace wristed, super queer looking get-up the gents of the 1500's used to wear. Thankfully, Presentation Boy didn't kick up a stink when I bequeathed his costume. Because at that point in the evening, in what had quickly become "our" presentation, I would have gone postal.

Costume "altered" to hold very explorerer-looking sword--check.

Boy to bed with 17.5 hours until time to hit the stage--yo.

Which brought me full circle back to Mary. I SO would love to skip back through time to be a fly on the wall in the Jesus, Joseph and Mary house. I think she would completely empathize with what I've been through tonight.

I'm sure Mary yelled at Jesus, probably over something really dumb, like not finishing his Hebrew homework until the night before it was due at temple. Kind of like I lost my mind on the man-boy in present times because he waited until the last minute and monopolized my time, exactly the way I predicted he would last week when I explained how this process SHOULD work.

In some ways the early years of raising Jesus should have been a cake walk. Basically, because she was raising the son of God, who could not sin, Mary could get away with murder** because Jesus was incapable of taking on her nasty tendencies.

But, me? I bequeath my ability to pile similar items in tall stacks that, if they fell, would crush small kittens. And my talent to slide in to any activity at a hair past last. Plus that uncanny capability to wait until the last minute and pull stuff out of my rear with astounding results.

So, there it is. My son is a procrastinator, exactly like me. And it drives me nuts.

Yet, tonight will all be worth it at 1pm tomorrow afternoon when he stands up in his polyester pirates-gone-gay costume, recites his presentation, and explains Drake's circumnavigation. When those four minutes of his and my life are over, I'll breathe a little easier.

And afterward, when I wink up at the Heavens, know I'm acknowledging you, Mary. You did a mighty fine job of raising that boy of yours.

I hope, someday, Mary's little boy will look me in the eye and tell me what a good job I did raising MY baby.

Even if he becomes a perpetually late, procrastinating, piler of all things that should really be filed.


*And we wonder why coulrophobia is right up there with acrophobia? Not this chick. Way to perpetuate fear, costume-makers of this world.

**Ha, ha. Get it? Punny girl, I am.