Where did my mind go? I want it back!

That school bus that I love in the mornings has come to be a dreaded arrival in the afternoons. Zach's sisters get off the with him in the afternoons and the homework hustle begins. I'm not good at doing the hustle, never been good at doing the hustle, never will be good at doing the hustle, yet, there I go.

Krysten, who has ADD 3 times worse than Zach's, took 28 minutes (yep, I timed her) doing the avoid-my-homework thing by taking all of her folders, papers, and whateverthehell else there was, out of her 3-ring binder. Then she thought she'd spend another 28 putting them all back, but she was wrong, I looked up from Abby's homework sheet that I was helping with and told her she had exactly 3 minutes to get em in and have the first homework problem done or the fly swat was going to be swatting something bigger than flies.

Then there was the little problem I had with Abby's first grade spelling homework. There was a list of their spelling words at the top and you had to choose the correct word for stuff like, "which word rhymes with cow", (this wasn't really a fair question cause two of the words, how and now, rhymed with cow and they asked for WHICH WORD, not Which words) and "which word is what you live on", and the one that really, really stumped me, "which word is a past tense verb"?

Now, I am not stupid and I really don't believe I've forgotten that much, so I'm looking through the words and the only verb there is "started". I know start is a verb, and one of the rules for past tense is the added ed, but is "started" really a past tense verb?

Example: The girl started to leave the room.

Now, tell me what's Past about that usage? Hell, she hasn't left yet, she only started to.

Anyway, to avoid confusing the poor child, and myself, I told her she'd better wait and ask her momma about that one.

MeriKate can do her homework with little or no help but she has to get her foot in the hustle ring too by doing whatever she can to make things easier for herself, such as tricking me into telling her the answers and I'm easily tricked, especially after trying to figure out all that stuff about first grade spelling.

We now come to Zach, the one who claims to have no homework even though he has to finish reading a book for a book report, and has a major Social Studies project about a county and city in Arkansas to have done before May 16th. Getting him to sit long enough to grill him about what needs to be done and what he's completed is similar to giving a bath to an unwilling cat. I'm considering handcuffs in his situation. Seriously.

Maybe some of those fuzzy, furry, ones so they won't leave marks. I don't want to go to jail for child abuse,,, but it may be a way to get some uninterrupted rest.