It ought to be against the law!
There are laws in this country covering just about everything you can think of, from smoking cigarettes to walking the dog. Since this is an accepted way of life, I think there ought to be laws covering a couple of aggravations that Mom has to put up with while her kids are school age. Laws governing such things as.. . homework and the kids’ free days from school. As far as I am concerned, it ought to be against the law to have to help with homework and put up with the kids when it snows and the schools close their doors.
Homework is fun around our house since there are two kids, one tenth-grader and one first-grader. Having two kids in the house who are nine years apart in school is not a “piece of cake” as far as school homework is concerned. Although I must say I have found it to be much easier to help with the first grade task of counting bears and frogs jumping over and into a pond than it is to help with the tenth-grade task of reading and trying to decipher the poems of William Shakespeare. Last week I was hit with requests from both. “Clark,” with his worksheet from his bears and frogs book and “Trixie’s” request for help with a Shakespeare poem titled, “Shall I Compare Thee To a Summer’s Day?” Needless to say. I breezed right through counting the frogs (sitting on a lily pad in the middle of a swamp) in no time at all. Then came the thee, thou art and hath of Shakespeare. If you ever want to feel really dumb try to figure out what Shakespeare is saying after the most recent intelligent reading material that you have read is “Dear Abby” in the evening newspaper. I must have read that puppy a dozen times trying to figure out what he was comparing to a summer’s day. I finally came up with an answer that I will not tell you about for fear of proving my stupidity. Oh well, I have always had a “who cares?” attitude about Shakespeare. Why should I change now? Bears and frogs are much more realistic reading anyway.
On to the next thing that I think ought to be against the law. .. kids at home from school on a snowy day. There is nothing worse than being locked in the house on Monday with kids, while the snow outside is as high as the window sill. The last time this happened, I not only had a little kid and a teenager. I also had a leftover teenager from the weekend who could not get home because of the snow. My day went something like this. .. instead of sitting in a nice clean quiet family room watching my favorite game shows and soap opera, I had to sit in the family room with a cluttered floor watching cartoons and all the old sit-com reruns from the 50’s and 60’s on channel 2. While I was enjoying “I Love Lucy.” the sounds from the latest rock album were penetrating the walls between the family room and “Trixie’s” room. The teenagers even had enough energy to move the furniture around in “Trixie’s room to the beat of the music, so every once in a while. I would hear a big “thud” when another piece of furniture found a new home. I think it was the “thud” of furniture-it might have been the music they were entertaining me with-I really can’t say for sure. They must have been in the kitchen looking for something to eat or drink at least forty times. When the day was over there was nothing left in the fridge or pantry that even resembled junk food. They had eaten it all They even had the nerve to use the last two eggs in the refrigerator to make Snikerdoodles, when they started to realize that the cookies and chips were almost gone. I must say the nicest part of my day was when they all went to bed.
So as far as I am concerned, if some of the people who are wasting their energy trying to stop smokers from smoking and dogs from walking would use their energy to pass some constructive laws like the ones that I have been talking about, the world would just have to be a better place to live… right. Mom?
Lawmakers, let’s make some of these things illegal!
