Okay, there is no Wednesday Wonder today because I forgot about it in all the craziness surrounding Gigi's First Big Homework Assignment.
There is a selection of rotten fruits and vegetables next to the door - no charge. Please feel free to pelt me with same on your way out. If you want to throw rocks, however, it's going to cost you: $1.00 for a tasteful arrangement of gravel; $5.00 for a small, yet elegant, river stone that fits a woman's hand like it was made for her to hurl; and for $20, you get a hefty, small-scale boulder complete with sling.
But I get a running start with that one.
You laugh, but how else am I going to earn enough money for Gigi's college tuition? Frankly, given her parents' classic response to her First Big Homework Assignment, I fear for her future academic integrity, so scholarships may not be available.
And what is this First Big Homework Assignment that has driven all else from my mind, you might ask?
Is is something so simple and so innocent that one would never suspect that, in reality, it is a task so fiendish in nature I'm sure it was devised by Attila the Hun.
It's a leaf collection.
Twelve little leaves, identified and labeled in the presentation style of choice (a scrapbook in this case). When we got this assignment six weeks ago, I was very adamant that we not wait until the last week to do it. I was also very weak in my resolve as I fell into that classic trap of thinking, "A leaf collection? How hard can it be?"
VERY hard, my friends. Very, very, VERY hard.
You may be wondering what's so hard about gathering up a bunch of leaves. Nothing at all. That's the fun part - the part that lulls you into a false sense of confidence as you go skipping through the forest with a little wicker basket over your arm and a song in your heart!
But, eventually, you will have to identify your leaves.
And that song in your heart will die faster than you can say, "How many flippin' types of Maples are there?!" And let's not forget the Oaks!
Now you would think that with the Internet at our fingertips, we'd be able to identify those suckers with a few mouse clicks.
Think again.
There is a very nice site recommended to us that got us all excited.
At first.
It started out easily enough. There are four major groups of leaf types, and you pick the one you think your leaf belongs to. For us, almost all of our leaves fell into the "Broad, Flat Leaf" category. This was an easy call, and Gigi was happy to make this choice.
Which lead us to determine whether we were holding a simple leaf (a single leaf hanging off the end of the stem) or a compound leaf (a gang of leaves hanging off of one stem). Again, this was a no-brainer, and the song in our hearts increased in both volume and tempo (we were definitely up to a robust cha-cha at this point).
Which brought us to the business of lobes. A simple leaf will be either unlobed or lobed, and if it's the latter, it will either be symmetrical or it will be asymmetrical (and resembling Nature Gone Wrong). This was a fairly easy choice for Gigi - I think all our leaves were either unlobed or lobed in a pleasing way. At this point, the song in my heart was joined by some sassy hip movements.
Having successfully navigated our way and selected "Lobed Leaves", we are presented with another three-sie of choices, and one of them really doesn't count because it's in a class all by itself: the Ginkgo (more on that troublemaker later). So you got yourself either a pinnately lobed leaf or a palmately lobed leaf. And the best way to explain this is also the best way to remember it. A palmately lobed leaf is very broad at the base - like the palm of your hand, and any projections would be like your fingers cut off at about the first knuckle. A pinnately leaf has a much more slender base with longer projections - like pins or fingers sticking out.
This is not really that tricky - although one does have to stop and consider one's options. However, we were up to the challenge and Gigi clicked on palmately lobed without missing a Bossa Nova beat.
Ah, now we're getting into the finer details. We found ourselves needing to determine whether our leaf had "V"-shaped notches between its lobes or "U" shaped notches OR notches that are so shallow they can hardly call themselves notches (those posers). Apparently there are only two kinds of leaves with the poser notches, so we knocked them out without any qualms. And once we looked at the illustrations, we felt that we understood the difference between V- and U-shaped notches.
The only problem is that sometimes those notches in the leaves don't know they are supposed to be either a U shape or a V shape. In fact, I would go so far as to say that several of them were really trying to straddle the fence on this physical trait. And it was at this point that our cha-cha started to lose its perky little swing.
Little did we know, but these rotten little notches proved to be the starting point in our Journey to the Center of Leaf Hell. Following closely on the heels of the ambiguous notches came the teeth - sharp, fine teeth, and "double" teeth, (?!) and rounded teeth - and once you made it through that elimination process, you're right back to lobes! Only this time we're talking about the number of lobes present: 5 -11 OR 3 ... BUT (!) sometimes with small basal lobes (which means that we could be looking at a three-lober trying to pass for a five-lober OR a five-lober that's trying to pass for a three-lober by sucking in its bottom lobes).
What the...?!
And it just gets worse because we haven't even gotten over to the pinnately lobed choices yet! Oh, yeah, there's a bunch of thugs for you. Not only are we dealing with teeth and lobes, but now we have to determine if our leaf's lobes are deeply notched or just mildly notched. And don't even get me started on bristle tips!
And we still have the unlobed leaf group to sort out - with smooth teeth vs. ragged teeth, short stems vs long ones, alternatively placed on the tree limb or with leaves opposite one another on the tree limb (something that is impossible to tell unless you had the foresight to chop off the whole branch and drug it home with you).
Being innocent and trusting souls frolicking in the forest, we did not have such foresight. All we brought was a picnic lunch.
Then all of them start going on about hairy undersides v. non-hairy - and, as far as I can tell, the leaves we think we have correctly identified as non-hairless types are really supposed to be hairy!
Oh, the humanity!
Let's not forget the oh-so helpful photos. HA! We would get all excited about matching up our characteristics and the drawings! - only to then see the actual picture and be filled with loathing and self-doubt. Like the Ginkgo leaf that almost sent me screaming into the night. Apparently there are male Ginkgo trees (which nobody ever talks about) and female Ginkgo trees, the latter having a cleft and being the one constantly used to illustrate that species. We, of course, did not have a leaf from a female Ginkgo tree, and our lack of a cleft drove me to distraction because a Ginkgo is one of the FEW trees I actually can recognize (thanks to my affection for William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement over 100 years ago). It was only after much searching that we discovered this whole male/female business.
Gigi, of course, does not understand her mother's ire at not being able to definitely identify most of the leaves in her collection. Gigi is also not what I'd call a contemplative sort, either. She's more of a Mover and a Fidgeter, and after awhile of Mommy having her click between various leaf possibilities, she decides it will be more fun to pretend to be Hannah Montana and sing into her pen - which, she cheerfully informs me, is actually a microphone and don't the 'coostics sound great? When Mean Mommy takes away the pen/microphone and tells her to Look Sharp and Pay Attention For Heaven's Sake, Gigi's response iss to cooperate for about 23 seconds before discovering that the paperweight on Mommy's desk iss actually a camera in disguise (!), thus beginning a rousing game of Paparazzi.
And I'm not even going to mention the labeling of our [probably erroneously] identified leaves. Okay, I will mention it. There may only be twelve labels for the kid to hand print on twelve little pieces of paper, but we're still not done on account of Gigi's getting distracted by trying to sing Son of a Preacher Man by Dusty Springfield. (Three times I looked down to see "Swamp White Oak" turn into "Swamp Preacher Tree.")
I am beginning to understand now why so many parents do their kid's science fair projects and other, more complicated homework. It's self-defense, pure and simple. Seriously - think about what goes through a parent's head: "Hmmmm.... if the kid does the project, I will be forced to endure hours of mind-numbing frustration; but if I do the project, we can have it all done quickly and painlessly." There were several times during this project where I felt like giving in and saying, "Go! Go watch TV! Go play in traffic! Anything!!! - just leave me alone so I can finish this bloody thing!"
However, I am proud to say that I did not succumb. And you know why?
Because I have integrity!
I have principles!
I have... a throbbing headache, THAT'S what I have.
And no Wednesday Wonder.
But Gigi has her little book of leaves that she picked herself, researched herself, (she made the choices at each level of elimination) and labeled herself. She even copy-and-pasted the descriptions into a document which I helped her cut apart with the paper trimmer. I also helped adhere the leaves, labels and descriptions (because she's got even more glue issues than I do). When she gets home this afternoon, I will help with the letter stickers for the front cover, (there's a big Sycamore leaf involved, so we need some extra dexterity) and then it will be finished.
And maybe - just maaaaaybe - she'll walk away with a sense of pride in what she's accomplished.
And an "A."
I'd really like to see her get an "A" after all I've been through....
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