Rhombus

This blog post is dedicated to all adults who suffer through elementary school homework on a daily basis.

This is a horror story. It ends with me crying over spilled milk, sort of.

Prelude to the Rhombus:

We had just returned to school from spring break. Spring break’s noncarpooling, nonhomeworking, nonextraactivitying bliss was flushed down the toilet on Tuesday, sort of.

3:20 PM: Toilet

Brooke and her friend were changing in the bathroom at her dancing school. Brooke left her school pants on the sink. In one spastic swoop of her ballerina arm, her pants landed in the toilet. After a barrage of squeals and laughter, I was urgently paged to the bathroom. The scene: Brooke was swinging her soaking pants everywhere. Droplets were getting on the floor, dance clothes, dance bags. Her friend was yelling that a drop got on her mouth, so she subsequently drank pee.

Where was I before the tragic toilet incident? I was with my younger daughter, Charlotte, getting the girls a snack at the vending machine. I forgot to provide the girls a snack in the car ride to dance. Judge.

3:45 PM: Confession

I carried my soaking wet pants, a confused Charlotte, and my obnoxious mom purse to my car. I called Brooke’s friend’s mother and prepared her for the crazy, true story she was going to hear through hysterical giggles at pick up. We planned to wash all the girl’s personal belongings and declared this the Pee Incident of 2016.

4:00 PM- The Rhombus Strikes!

While Brooke and her friend were dancing their toilet hysteria away, I went through Brooke’s homework folder. I read the dreaded words:

Please find and trace the following polygons from objects in your home.

Say, what?

A poly-what?

The rhombus said what?

What the hell is a rhombus?

Instead of folding laundry or getting dinner ready, my phone is tethered to my hand as I Google real life poly-what’s-its and pray.

5:00 Pm- Brooke arrives home.

She is amped and exhausted at the same time. The tracing begins. Brooke’s not sure what a rhombus is either.Should Brooke have done the searching? Yes, if there were 50 hours in a day and we were not all exhausted. Sure, if I didn’t have to lure an inquisitive Charlotte out of the room with an episode of Doc McStuffins about 400 times. Judge.

7:00 PM- Rhombus Aftermath:

Dinner was ready. Disney Junior blared in the background. Brooke’s homework was almost done. Did I mention she  also had ten Language Arts sentences to write? Yes, we started it the night before. The Rhombus ate our time.

My husband came home from work. He found me with stringy hair, bags under my eyes, and falling blood sugar. I reached for the skim milk to raise blood sugar.  My husband loudly called to me. I accidentally took the baby’s milk, which is full fat. I needed the skim because it digests quicker.I burst into tears like frustrated toddler and told him he was too loud. My husband looked frightened. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me “You’re done.”

The rhombus won. The rhombus broke Mommy, sort of.

“R” Draft