Bears Don't Have Wheels

The kindergarten homework failure parade continued at the Bishop house last week. But at least we had a win first.

What you see above is a picture of grapes, bananas, cupcakes and a pumpkin. The directions said to cross out the one that doesn’t belong with the others. Madeline crossed out the pumpkin.

I asked her why. "Pumpkins aren’t for eating," she said, like it was the most ridiculous question she’d ever heard.

This does actually makes some sense, though. Number of times she’s had cupcakes? Countless. Number of times she’s had pumpkin in clearly recognizable pumpkin form? Zero.

In fact, the number of times I've had raw pumpkin is zero, too. Seeds? Sure. Pie? Yes, but then it's more akin to cupcakes so we’re back at square one.

I guess pumpkin is a fruit. But come on, when you think of fruit, you've got to get pretty far down the list before you get to pumpkin. And before I wrote that, I absolutely had to Google pumpkin to confirm it’s not really a vegetable. 

Thus, a moral parental quandary for Kelly and me: 

1. Tell Madeline we agree with her but she's wrong and that's just how the world is so suck it up, kid. 
2. Let Madeline turn in homework we were pretty sure would be sent back marked incorrect, further reinforcing her teacher's surely burgeoning belief that Kelly and I are a bit on the daft side. 

Ultimately, we decided to leave the X on the pumpkin, and wrote a note to the teacher asking her to ask Madeline to explain why that was the thing that didn’t belong. The homework came back with a green "OK." Victory! 

The celebration, however, was to be short-lived. This is where the sad trombone of the homework failure parade began to play once more.

The worksheet also came back marked "Redo and follow the whole directions," as some of the problems had an extra step that we’d missed. What we were supposed to do for those was: "Cross out the one that doesn’t belong and tell why." (The pumpkin problem wasn’t among these.)

I assure you we hadn’t completely ignored this part — I’d just done it wrong. Instead of having Madeline write down the answer, I’d sat down with the kid and had her verbally "tell why." You know, on account of the fact that Madeline can't spell.

Okay, she can spell a few things — her name, her brother’s name, Mommy, Daddy, love and a couple of other words. She’s positive this is enough for her to be able to play Words With Friends, yet I remain unconvinced.

Anyway, I asked Madeline to explain why among a tricycle, toy truck, wagon and teddy bear, she’d crossed out what she did.

"Daddy," she began, a little condescendingly. "Bears don’t have wheels." It was like she was maybe 98% sure I knew the answer, but had decided to play it safe just in case.

I spelled "bears don't have wheels" out for her letter by letter and she wrote it all down, and then we redid the rest of the problems she’d missed. The homework came back the next day with an "OK" on it.

 
You don’t eat pumpkin. Bears don’t have wheels. 

Madeline must be constantly wondering, "What is wrong with these people?"

Five Years Old and Punk as F***

Just like her dad, Madeline loves music. When we went to go see the Doo Dads at Park Place over the summer, she wanted to be right up front, close to the band. It’s never too early to start developing the key rock show skill of fighting your way to the front of the crowd.

We listen to a lot of 1st Wave on Sirius in my car. Classic alternative and new wave is to me, Madeline and James, as listening to Motown on the radio was to me and my mom.

Madeline asks some pretty good questions about the songs on 1st Wave when we’re driving ‘round (up and down, through the streets of your town). Here are a few of my favorites.

The Ramones: "Rock 'n' Roll High School"
"Daddy, am I going to go to a rock and roll high school?"

The Cure: "Boys Don't Cry"
"Does that mean they think only girls cry? Because boys do cry. I've seen them."

Siouxsie and the Banshees: "Christine"
For this song, Madeline wanted to know why Siouxsie Sioux calls Christine “the strawberry girl” in the chorus* — but my co-worker Leisha had a much better question.

I was proudly telling Leisha how Madeline was expressing interest in what I'd consider some fairly advanced post-punk for a kindergartner. Leisha then asked me, “So at what point did you decide to raise Madeline to be a tiny goth?”

    Think this...                                             ...plus this.
 
Cool, yes. But I can't imagine the look would fly at Catholic school.
 
*I didn’t know why Christine is “the strawberry girl,” so I looked it up. “Christine” is based on Chris Costner Sizemore, who had dissociative identity disorder, and “the strawberry girl” was one of her identities. If Madeline’s question comes up again, I’m going to stick with, “I guess she’s just super excited about eating healthy foods."