EJ just had his first homework assignment. Light reminder, he's two years old. He (read, I) had to draw a picture of his house and who lives in it for a class discussion on families. (Side note, I can only imagine the enthralling discussion he and his peers will engage in).
This homework assignment was traumatizing for me.
I tried putting it off. I tried blowing it off, with some crazy mumbling about it not being important or relevant for kids to know about their families. Finally, the teacher in me took over, and I found myself sitting glumly at my desk. I would get this done...I am a nerd and it was, after all, assigned.
Prior to beginning my drawing, I perused EJ's class directory, only to see that my little bugger is the only kid with just his mom's name in the "Parents" column. Eesh. I know that single parents are everywhere, but I'm still not super siked to display it on 11x13 construction paper. I mean, EJ's everyday family is his grandma and I...we don't even have a cat or goldfish to jazz it up. As I faced this fact, I imagined the other class moms using brand new, fine-point colored pencils to sketch and shade perfect replicas of their husbands, kids, dogs, and butlers. I, on the other hand, had only dulled, broken crayons....the perfect metaphor for how I was feeling.
I got to sketching. Two tall stick figures and one short. The brown broken crayon was perfect to replicate my big wavy hair, but my short-haired mother had what looked like gray beanie on her head. I tried to girly her up with a huge pink bow, but now it looked like Ethan was being raised by a stick-figure Maria Menounos (my hair dream) and Minnie Mouse. Or, by a progressive lesbian couple.
I moved on...the worst was over and the house part would be easy. Blue house, door, some windows. Unfortunately, I grabbed the wrong crayon, and accidentally shaded 2/3 of the house purple before I realized my error. Since it was too late to go back, I committed to the color choice, and now Ethan lived in a violet purple house with Maria and Minnie. I threw some bushes out front, slapped on an orange sun, and quickly folded up the paper before EJ saw it and started asking questions.
Families are made up of the people who love you, no matter whether they're your blood or not. I think it's time for me to really get that there is no normal when it comes to their size or makeup. EJ and I have a lot of people who love and support us, so it doesn't matter if they live in our purple house with us or not. Lesson learned. Assignment done.
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