Life Lessons

Ever since the school year started, I've been just fascinated by the concept of Max doing real homework. Fascinated. This school is no joke, he brings home a lot of crap, sometimes on the weekends! I love watching him write and erase and write and erase. I try not to be too much of a Butinski, but it's hard 'cause I know the answers. His teacher says "If you start helping him now, you'll be helping all the way through high school." What does she know? Kidding. I love her. So I try to just read over his work when he's done, which is cool b/c he literally HATES it when I help him. Today he had to write sentences for three of his weekly spelling words. I read them and two things occurred to me: 1) He's got a lot on his mind (I'm slightly offended by the last sentence). 2) I have to save more of his and Marco's artwork. Don't get me wrong, I save a lot. More than Mark and Martha Stewart think I should. But so much of it is just pure genius. I need more storage.

And because you've taken the time (again) to read my observations (do you have a job?), I've gone into the archives to find more of our family artwork. You'll see that I'm not the only pack rat in the family -- my mother and Enee saved trunkloads of our crap...er, precious memories. Check it out...

Danielle drew this one when she was about seven -- it's the family, just after Max was born. I don't know what I love more, my nose ring or Mark's hip (this might explain his recent injury).

This is one of Marco's works of art. Here's the thing about the "artwork" kids bring home from daycare when they're like 2...they didn't really do the work. That's why I filed most of the stuff they sent home with Marco from the YMCA. I mean seriously, I know some little Early Childhood Education major did all the crafts while Marco was eating glue. And that's cool. But I do, as a rule, save all of the artwork that had his little fingerprints, hand prints or footprints. These pieces are worth more than gold. And this little poem makes me cry everytime, even when I'm not premenstrual.

This one was created by my sister during her Aluminum Foil phase. She's basically going to strangle me for putting this up here, so take a good long look. Did you ever make one of these in art class? It's like aluminum foil colored with magic marker or paint or something, then placed under plastic. You'll notice my sister added a lovely sky blue matting. (Sky. S-K-Y. Sky.) I don't know how old she was when she did this. I'm guessing like 4th grade. Two things to know: Her handwriting is EXACTLY the same. And, I stole this from my mother.

I'm abundantly sad that I don't have any of Mark's schoolwork (he assures me that he did in fact attend school). What I do have though, is so much better. The pages above are from a little yellow book that Mark's mom gave to Max a few years ago. It's called the Royal Primer, and Mark used it in elementary school--Black River Primary School in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. He later attended Santa Cruz All Age School, and left for America in the 6th grade. Below is a shot of Mark's actual sixth grade classroom which "still looks just the way I left it," Mark says. This shot was taken a few years ago by a friend and an amazing photographer, Hassan Kinley.

Off to bed now.