DONE...... Finally!

Dang.... sometimes I think the kid's school projects are just exercises in ways to torture parents! I KNOW that they are to expand the kids world, but still....

So Audrey has been working on this horribly hard project for the last two weeks. Part of the problem has been how sick Nathaniel has been, and therefore how tired I have been. But another part of the problem is that the project was a creative art project that also needed to be a book report. My artistic daughter spent countless HOURS over planning and executing the details of her creativity, but didn't want to spend ANY time on the book report part!

Case in point: She needed to make a list of "ingredients" in the books she was reporting on. She took TWO HOURS to "write" the few words out in the MOST DRAMATIC handwriting EVER. The problem? Other than it took her FOREVER and drove me bonkers? You couldn't READ the handwriting because it was so dramatic! When I pointed this fact out to her the answer I got in return was "But it LOOKS beautiful and it adds visual power to the project." Seriously? Visual power from a third grader???

So we had to compromise.

I INSISTED that all the writing had to be done on the computer, and that she could not spend more time on the execution of the art than she spent on the execution of the report. Could have been a BAD compromise on my part.

See, my kid is pretty smart.

 I set a timer for how long it took her to answer the questions on the scratch paper, then type them all into the computer. Then the deal was she got to spend that long on the art too.

See a problem here?

Yup, you guessed it.

She DRUG out the writing part FOREVER to have FOREVER on her art.

Sigh.

Can't say I didn't try...

But the project is FINALLY done, and most of her planned "creativity" is still included in the project, yet it is readable enough for me to be OK with her turning it in.

So here it is, in all of it's glory:

I DID decide that this project was not a lesson in computer skills, so I helped with the formatting of the pages. That was a little over the top, but I did put everything where SHE told me to. And she TYPED all of the words, I just formated the pages so that they printed correctly.

Notice the words search in TEENY TINY letter that you need a magnifying glass to read, that was her plan! She was SO DETERMINED about that. Other than setting up the graph for her, and helping her to get all the words in there, I didn't help with this page. SHE put all those dang random letters in there! And she was HILARIOUS about the words she put in there NOT on her list.... her teacher's name, her school name, her name, thoughts about the project, the names she was calling her brother while he was picking on her during this project, ALL kinds of stuff. It was pretty funny to watch her.

And the BIGGEST plan of all: 

The spring loaded turtle that pops up when you open the box... my goodness she was so funny explaining that to the guy at the hardware store where we had to go buy a spring! He thought we were totally crazy I am sure!

It might have felt like it was going to KILL me to get through this project without hanging her, but it is DONE! Finally.....

Now I need a glass of wine!