Sugar-coated lesson

"I don't like first grade. It's too hard."

That's not AJ talking. That's me!

The note from the teacher was deceptively calming. There'd be just one homework assignment each week - to practice their list of spelling words. It'd be sent home each Monday, and would be due the following Friday. How easy is that?

And then I got a look at the assignment - multiple parts that would be too much to do in one evening. In other words, we need to practice discipline/time management and plan accordingly to do a little work throughout the week.

And somehow I still ended up having to make an emergency run to the grocery store Thursday night for supplies. On a related note, did you know they still make Alpha-Bits cereal?

To make it "fun", the assignment sheet listed in a grid nine possible spelling activities. The kids needed to do three of them. The catch is - they had to pick three activities from the grid that lined up in a row - kind of like Tic Tac Toe. AJ chose the middle box first: Write all your words forward and backward. Easy enough. (Though, wow, is that ever a painfully slow process. Thank goodness one of the words was "a". The irony of writing it the same way forward and backward is quite amusing when you're six.) Next, he surprised me by choosing to spell out his words like a cheerleader."Give me a C! Give me an A! Give me a T! What's that spell?"

With two in a row complete (we had those done by Tuesday night) that left only... of course the most complicated option in the grid. "Spell your words by arranging alphabet pasta or Alphabitz cereal."

I'm pretty sure I've never seen alphabet pasta, other than the Spaghetti-Os version, which would have been way too messy, and I can't recall the last time I saw the cereal. But I figured I could stop at a store Wednesday on my way home from work. But of course I forgot. And so suddenly it was Thursday, with the deadline looming, and our evening schedule was as follows:

• Jeff would pick up Sydney from daycare, get her into her dance costume and drop her off at my office by 4:40 on his way to work.
• I would then leave work early to get Sydney to dance class by 5:15. (We were four minutes late due to road construction.)
• While Sydney was dancing, I'd leave and pick up AJ from his afterschool program and take him home to get into his soccer uniform.
• We'd return to dance class to pick Sydney up by 6 p.m.
• Next we'd head to the soccer field for AJ's game at 6:15. (Whew! It felt good to sit down at the game.)

Soccer game over (1-1 tie... a story for another day), we headed to the grocery store where we found, thank goodness, the very last box of Alpha-Bits. How much do you suppose this assignment boosted sales of Alpha-Bits this week?

Finally, around 8:15, we finished dinner, cleaned the table and dumped out the box of cereal in search of the necessary letters.

And that's when we made a swell discovery. Alpha-Bits include a whole lot of As, Bs, Ds and Os, but not so many of the other letters. There were no Es, Ms or Ss, forcing us to start eating parts of some of the other letters until the looked like what we needed.

Cereal spelling list at last complete, AJ headed for his room. I was feeling pretty good that we got all that accomplished and it was only 15 minutes past bedtime. 

And then, from his room, I heard the unmistakeable thump-thump-thump of Gus's clumsy footwork, followed by the rustle of paper.

NOOOOOOO!!!!!

I ran into the living room and discovered, as feared, Gus had stood up on his hind legs and grabbed the paper off the table, and was now happily running around the living room, shaking the prize in his mouth as he went.

And that is why AJ's very first assignment as a first grader included a note from Mom to his teacher.

"Sorry for the condition of AJ's homework assignment. The dog really did try to eat it."

Kindergarten was so much easier!