Who's Child Is This?

So I asked The Child about the cooler full of provisions.

"Oh. That."

When she came home sick on Monday I had just stripped her bed prepatory to a good laundering. So she was insconced in our room with television and chicken noodle soup. Once I got her bed back together she was going to decamp to her own space and do homework. (Oh, and the "illness" was just a touch of the over-doing it with junky food during all her weekend festivities - The Boy's birthday party and then a movie date/Johnny Rockets fandango with The Spouse and The Boy).

So her story, and she's sticking to it, is that she prepared this little feast so that she could eat if she was hungry without bothering me.

"That's very considerate," said I. "But it's my job to bring you food when you're sick in bed. Don't worry about it. Plus, mommy doesn't want ants and things in your room. That's why I only want you eating in there if you are in fact sick in bed".

"Oh. Ok".

So there you go. Nothing nefarious or even mildly creative. Nothing like the time when Dame Judi was cleaning out my brother's room and found a drawer full of garden dirt.

"Why do you have a drawer full of dirt?" she asked, as would anyone.

"Well, sometimes I like to make projects and I don't always want to go all the way out to the garden".

Kids.

Meanwhile, The Child has been on some sort of mission. She brought up her science and religion grades, which was superfantastic. But she got an F in math. Yes. An F. No drama club for her this spring. But the cool thing was that for the first time ever, she really cared.

"You know, mom, I've realized that I really have to knuckle down. I mean, this is serious. I'm in middle school and high school is coming up. I have to do better. I even asked Mr. D to move me to a new desk because P is always turning to me and saying things like, 'What's the square root of a picon?' and I don't even know what that is and I tell him, 'Hey, P, I'm trying to work here'".

So she has this whole plan, which she is fully implementing, to get as much of her work done at school as possible and to spend more time at home reviewing and studying. To that end, she has also decided that for 15 minutes every day she's going to teach me the math she's working on. Which is a good strategy because teaching someone else is a very good way to learn yourself.

Yesterday she came home with an entire worksheet that she'd created, something with tables and logic questions that, frankly, kicked my butt. I'm happy to say that with her instruction I was able to score 24 out of 26 on my "pop quiz". Math and I haven't been on a first name basis since 4th grade but if it helps her feel more confident about what she's learning then I'm all for it.

But that's not all. This morning she got up and dressed in record time. I called her for breakfast and she was a little late to the table. "I'll be right there, I just have to make my bed". Cool. She comes out and eats and then, without being told, picks up her dishes and...wait for it....loads them into the dishwasher. Then she wiped the counter.

"Uh, I'm sorry, what did you do with my kid?" I demanded. She grinned. Then she asked if I'd like a tour of her room. (Been there, bought the snow globe, but sure). She takes me in to reveal that she had not only made her bed, arranging the pillows and stuffed creatures as if for a photo shoot, but had also picked up her floor, tidied her desk and straightened her shelves.

Times like this you can't help but think, "Hey, maybe we've got a potentially productive member of society on our hands after all".