Call in Scully and Mulder because I want to believe…
I walked downstairs on Saturday morning and, stunned by the scene in front of me, became convinced I was in the wrong house.
Something woo-woo had happened in my sleep, causing me to astral travel to another woman’s home, even though it was disturbingly similar to my living room. Even the kids were identical to mine.
But despite the similarities, it couldn’t possibly have been my house because…
There were three children sitting at the table in complete and utter silence…
doing their homework…
Voluntarily!
Da-da- dahhhhhhhhh!
I know! Shocking, right?
Completely freaking unbelievable?
Immediately, I whipped out my phone to record the moment for posterity, because surely this was a once in a lifetime event- never to be repeated, ever again in the history of the universe.
I snuck around behind them and looked at their screens, the cynic in me too suspicious to truly believe my own eyes.
Expecting to see ‘Lego for kids’ or bloody ‘Minecraft’, I was stunned into silence when the screens displayed ‘Mathletics’ and ‘Reading Eggs’- their assigned homework sites.
Holy crap!
Did the ‘homework faerie’ come to my home last night and sprinkle his magic dust over three of my kids? (the eldest was still snoring in his bed- he’s not a morning person).
Were they hypnotised into obedience? (is that even possible?)
Had my husband bribed them with sugar, salt and grease laden treats the night before?
No, no and no. They had simply decided to do their homework before breakfast so that they could have the rest of the day to themselves.
Utterly shocking. A miracle worthy of canonisation.
Those of you who have children will smile when I say ‘it’s usually very difficult to get my kids to do their homework.’
And by ‘difficult’, I really mean impossible; requiring more bribery than the FIFA World Cup drama, more tears than a screening of ‘Beaches’, ‘Step Mom’ and ‘The Fault in our Stars’ combined. More objections than the entire 20 seasons of ‘Law and Order’, and a level of eye-ball rolling, pouting and groaning that would rival the entire teenage population.
And that’s on a good day!
Yes, parents – you know exactly what I’m talking about. Homework = nightmare.
It’s possible that every parent hates homework more than their kids do. The act of getting your kid to sit down and do their homework is a trial, a torture and threatens family unity. It ruins that lovely parent-kid bond that you’ve worked so frigging hard to achieve.
And the worst part of homework is that for their entire school career it never ends! It starts in Prep and finishes 13 years later when the graduate high school – and that’s without them going on to University!
So, you can imagine my aneurism inducing shock at the image of the scholarly endeavour in front of me.
I can’t explain it, and more importantly, I don’t even want to. Whatever happened was perfect – like all the planets aligned and combined with the ethereal powers of the universe, Jedi force and magic ju-ju.
Will it happen again next week?
I’m an optimist, not a deranged lunatic. I’ll leave my homework-performance expectations where they are- somewhere around the soles of my shoes.
Instead I am going to take this victory as a baffling, but extraordinarily wonderful, phenomenon of magnificence. It will be stored in the recesses of my mind and brought out while sitting around campfires telling stories of the eerie and inexplicable. It will take its place in folklore and fable, nestled amongst Big Foot, Nessie and the Min Min lights, and there it shall remain- a distant, yet glorious memory in my mommy mind.
