Addendum: The Male Northern Cardinal

This morning, before I hauled Jay off to orchestra practice at the insanely early time of 6:30 (we left early and grabbed breakfast one the way - a rare treat) I was helping him get his things together and I looked in his bookbag.

Two guesses as to what I found in there...

No, not an actual (yet dead) Male Northern Cardinal. Though honestly, nothing about that would have surprised or shocked me!

The ORIGINAL report! It was in his bookbag the whole dang time that he was insisting that he left it at school!!! I'm confident that if Katie would have known about this she may have strangled him. I know I nearly did.

His blue eyes got huge and nearly lept out of his astonished little face!

His jaw dropped so far down that I could count all of the teeth in the bottom row! (He did a good job brushing!)

He was actually stunned to silence! For those of you who know him, you know just what a rare thing this was!!

But at the same time, his shoulders slumped and he let out this gaspy little noise that indicated that, by mysteriously producing the report folder and it's contents, I was a WAY better magician than that hack they used to have at Pizza Hut.

And I felt bad for him because in that fleeting instant of recognition he instantly knew that nearly everything he did last night was in vain. He could have gone to bed at the normal time and not have been so tired. He could have watched all of Survivor, not just the lame reward challenge.

The original was only a rough draft, but was done and he wouldn't have needed to start over. He would have only needed to type it all up. In the end, he just asked me to put the "new" report in the folder for him and stick it in his bag.

I hope he gets a good grade on it after all he put himself through. I may just slip the deduction I took from his allowance last night back in next week. He deserves it.

The Male Northern Red Cardinal

Jay has to do a report on this. It's due tomorrow. He had a pretty good start on it. He left his "good start" at school. I didn't know whether to scream or cry. I cried. It was an honest mistake and he felt bad so there was no need to yell at him. (And beyond allowing me a way to vent, it wouldn't have helped.) But I did make a modest deduction from his allowance.

He had an hour of tutoring tonight with Katie. She's good for him so far. And he likes her (maybe because she's a blonde!), so all is well. Poor Katie got to help write the report. Again. They worked on it together last week.

I may give some of that allowance deduction back though because at the moment, 15 minutes past his bedtime, he's working his butt off in his room typing away. He hasn't complained once. Katie was thoughtful enough to type it as he wrote it and emailed it to me, so he's typing based on his notes from the library and Katie's email - which are actually the same exact words, but her typing is easier to read than his writing!

He didn't even complain when he didn't get to watch Survivor. Though he was doing so well that I invited him to watch the immunity challenge with me. Then he happily went back to his work. Honestly, the kid freakin amazed me!

What makes this all worse, is he has to be up 45 minutes early tomorrow (that's 6 o' freakin clock!!) because he has orchestra practice for the Spring Ensemble which is Sunday night. He has to be at school by 7:00.

So here we are at 9:43 and he's done with the report (YAY), it's proofread, printed, stapled and ready to go. I just hope we don't forget it in the morning!