Friday – 06 January 2017
Not that this really comes as a surprise to anyone, but I love my kids.

Taking over one of my coworker’s desk…

Last night, after nearly freezing to death in the arctic tundra snowblowing the driveway and sidewalks, I talked with Team DiVa about their day and school and if they had any homework. “Fine.” “Good.” “This friend…” “We read…” You get the idea.

As they were getting ready to do their reading – and it still kind of blows my mind at how well both of them are reading – Vanessa commented that she couldn’t find one of her homework sheets. Being kids and not always the most keen detectives, I asked her had she looked in a couple of places: her backpack, the living room, the dining room. She said that she had and still couldn’t find it.

::: face begins contorting into a mask of despair :::

I told her that I’d help her look, and I did. And, she was right: Nowhere to be found. For the sake of clarity on my part, I juxtaposed Vanessa’s homework sheets with Diana’s. Lo and behold, Vanessa was missing one. Well, damn.

* cue: “MY WORLD IS ENDING” crying jag *

I looked at the sheet in question and had a minor epiphany. I told Vanessa not to worry, we’d make sure that she had her homework. I took a couple pictures of Diana’s homework, then I headed downstairs. I fired up PhotoShop and imported the pictures, did some (rough and crude) edits to remove Diana’s answers, and printed the pages. Triumphant, I returned upstairs!

Vanessa looked at the sheets, looked up, and said – as only a kid could or would: “The sheets aren’t supposed to be purple!” (Because I didn’t worry about color-correcting the pictures, there was a bit of purple tint to one of the pages.) This, too, almost led to tears. Sara and I assured her that her teacher would still accept i – even if it was the “wrong” color – she just needed to do the work.

Begrudgingly, she accepted this answer and did her homework… but she still had doubts that we actually knew what we were talking about.

Kids. Go figure.