Little Man's Eleanor Roosevelt Diorama...

Two and a half weeks ago, Little Man, Hubby, and I went to Little Man’s Spring School Conferences. With a glowing review of Little Man’s potential and abilities, Hubby and I also learned about Little Man’s Eleanor Roosevelt Diorama assignment. The diorama was to illustrate their person’s contribution to America’s development. Hubby and I were informed that to date, instead of working on his research in the class time provided, Little Man chose to ignore the work time opportunities—Translation: Little Man knew only that Eleanor Roosevelt was married to an important president…at some point,   within the history of the United States.

Over the following week, Hubby and I continued to ask Little Man when he would be bringing his diorama project home to work on. We received answers like: “I don’t know!”, “Well you threw away the shoe boxes!”, and “I don’t even know what a diorama is anyway!” Even I’m not sucker enough to fall for the fact that little Man was being held responsible for successfully completing this project, in a void, without any instructions.

Finally, this past Monday, on our way home from basketball practice, I asked him one more time, “Little Man, do you know when your diorama is due yet?” And finally, seemingly happy to have an exact answer, he spouted, “It’s due Thursday!”

The car went silent…

Then, being the extremely caring and rational parent I am, I started a very logical discussion (one sided of course) on the practicality of expecting a major homework assignment to magically complete itself, with a high level of quality and expertise, by the due date of Thursday…magically! Soon, we pulled into the garage, and feeling that went pretty well, I shepherded Little Man into the house with specific instructions to go directly to his room and “think” about the reality of his homework plans.

That taken care of, it was time to brief Princess. I pulled her aside, gave her a princess hug, and prepared her for the noise to come. I explained gently that Hubby and I needed to put the smack-down on Little Man, and that in no way was any of the noise to come directed at her. This served two purposes: Princess would definitely not be blindsided by the activities of the evening, and Hubby and I were guaranteed a perfectly well-behaved Princess for a few days at the very least.

That night, Hubby and I fulfilled our parental duties by talking Little Man nearly to death. (Don’t chuckle Mitch!) Together we expounded on the requirements of the assignment. We peppered Little Man with questions designed to force a plan of action. And we ate up a bit more time to ensure Little Man would have a few quality nights of the Late Night Cram Sessions he had so cluelessly chosen.

That night, Little Man researched Eleanor Roosevelt’s contributions to the United States. Of course it was much more difficult because online writing, as a general rule, isn’t written at a fourth grade reading level. He researched, he took notes, he wrote a sloppy copy, and he finally finished these steps around 9:00 p.m. By now, Little Man was hoping for bed, and Hubby and I were fading fast. But Little Man had one more task for the evening - to write a letter to his teacher explaining why he hadn’t started his assignment until this evening. Amazingly, that one agonizing sentence forcing Little Man to own his actions-or lack thereof- only took one hour to write…

Bleary eyed, Little Man finally hit the sack around 10:00. For the average fourth grader, I figured one late night is manageable. But Hubby and I were going to wear Little Man down in an attempt to give Little Man the near-perfect experience of back to back late night cram sessions. By the end of Tuesday night, Little Man typed his essay, proofed it, and embarked on a thought-filled but less than stellar diorama attempt. Note also, no shoe boxes were harmed in the making of Little Man’s diorama. Orville Redenbacher, however, took a hit for the team. Figuring Little Man was sure to have at least one more long study night on Wednesday, we relented at his progress thus far.

Finally, we stumbled into Wednesday night. Little Man was exhausted, Hubby and I were getting delirious with the ominous responsibility of providing the best possible cram sessions ever, and Princess got off easy and went to bed. One slow and increasingly painful step at a time, Little Man made improvements upon his initial attempt at a quality Eleanor Roosevelt diorama. First, he tackled the idea that stick people and stick drawings weren’t likely what his teacher had in mind. Then he realized that three dimensional means floors and ceilings do count. Finally, Little Man conquered the neutralization of Orville Redenbacher’s portrait on the exterior surfaces of his project. At that point, we all dragged ourselves to bed…

Little Man experienced his first experience of back to back late night cram sessions, and even though I’m sure it won’t be his last, I think he’ll at least be satisfied enough with his experience to last him a relatively long time…well, at least through May…and then it’s summer…and I’m pretty certain big projects don’t come along right away in the fall, so I’m thinking we might be clear until Christmas…but then there are promises of presents…(I think I just crossed over into wishful thinking…)