Who's project is it anyway????

So here's what I want to know.

When teachers assign these "projects".....what is their ultimate goal? Is it really to teach the kids something? Or is it that they are in "cahoots" with the local Michael's store, and they're splitting the profits?? No....maybe it's the teachers' way of getting back at the parents.

Whatever the reason, I'm not loving it. I cannot even BEGIN to recall the money and time that we have invested over the years of having four children in school. Oh, we've made 3-D Tasmanian devils and dragonflies, Indian Forts, and candy graphs. But this one....it took the cake.

Our fourth grader (and let me remind you that fourth graders are 9 and 10 years old) was assigned making a float for a book parade. Yep....I said float. The requirements? It had to fit through doorways, had to roll, and had to be a scene from your favorite book....and it had to be accompanied by a two paragraph paper that "can be typed for neatness if they want". (are you kidding me???)

Now what you need to keep in mind, is that my son loves anything that has to do with the military. The Marine Corps especially (my husband is a former Marine), but he'll read anything that has to do with the military....whether it's historical or present day.

So he knew immediately, what his favorite book was. 'A Boy at War, A Novel of Pearl Harbor'. Yes....I said Pearl Harbor. And go ahead and use your imagination and just guess what his favorite scene was......mmmhmmm.....you guessed it.....when the Japanese attacked.

Are you feeling sorry for us yet? Because let me just tell you......you should be.

And can I just get a shout out right now for my husband? Because I cannot even imagine what this would have turned out like had I been left to my own devices.

So our weekend was consumed with trying to resurrect our 17 year old wagon that has gone from having four red detachable sides, to being a flatbed without a handle, into something our son could pull around the school. And while my husband is extremely capable of cutting plywood and drilling it to the wagon, let me take this moment to remind you that this is our son's project.....not ours.....or at least it's suppose to be. But what 10 year old do YOU know that has access to power saws and drills???

Ahem. Sorry....I get fired up just thinking about it.

So $12 later (and that's only because we had the extra plywood laying around in the garage, and the popsicle sticks and paint readily available from the last project), Destin was sitting at the kitchen table, assembling & painting wooden ships, and transforming dollar store airplanes into Japanese fighter planes....while his Daddy painstakingly attached the platform to the dilapidated wagon.

Let's not forget the navy bed sheet that I have had tucked away in a drawer that came in handy as the water for this rig.....and a gracious Paw-Paw who could see that I was struggling with trying not to hurt somebody with a staple gun (those things are dangerous!!!), when he walked in the house for a dinner invitation, but instead got to help with "THE FLOAT". Oh yes....even Paw -Paw got to help, and did a mighty fine job draping and stapling the sheet.

Did I mention that this was my son's project?

And thank God for Cricut machines that cut lettering much faster than 10 year old hands, because the other requirement was that it had to have the title and author displayed on it.

I'm sure hoping we all get an "A" on it. I wasn't aware that having kids meant that we got to go back through school again.

I'm just sayin'.