Monday, April 24, 2006

All Hope For The Future is Riding On Hashbrowns

The DemiGoddesses are taking standardized tests at school today and tomorrow. They love these test days because they get to point out to me that all the teachers reminded them to bring several sharpened #2 pencils and to eat a good, BIG breakfast on both test days.


“We must have eggs! And bacon! And hashbrowns!” they cheerfully reported, not actually saying but clearly implying that I will get up early and I will cook, or they will both do badly and their tragically (and entirely preventable) low test scores will keep them way, way out of the honors program and will not only dash any hope of scholarship money but also certainly make acceptance to decent colleges out of the question. Their resulting lifetimes of poverty and dismal dead-end jobs will be all. My. Fault.

Oh, the humanity.

In spite of their very clear instructions, I decided to nix the hashbrowns (they take too long and the carb overload would have only made them too sleepy to think). And since every egg in the house had been hard-boiled and dyed for Easter, their test day power meal turned out to consist of leftover Easter eggs and turkey bacon, along with a quick fruit salad that I threw together with bananas, peach yogurt and mixed berries. Because blueberries are brain food, of course.

It wasn’t exactly a breakfast bonanza, but it was a step up from their usual Eggo waffles, and I think I did pretty well considering that my electric skillet is still buried somewhere in the sunroom. (How much more efficient cooking becomes when there are no doors on any of the cabinets!)

The truth is that it was all for show, anyway. The Demis always do well on these tests, and I am really not one bit worried about their scores.

Besides which, getting up early this morning turned out to be easy due to the anxious dreams I had all night about being late for the agonizing three-day-meetings and forgetting to wake the children in time for their pre-standardized-test hashbrowns.

4 comments:

jo(e) said...

My kids do the same thing. Their school sends home a note saying they must eat a "hearty breakfast."

Clearly, the word hearty does not mean good for the heart because they interpret that to mean bacon and scrambled eggs. My husband usually rises to the occasion and makes it for them.

Joe said...

Ah, standardized testing. Truly, it shows how forward-thinking the Bush administration is to place so much emphasis on a one-day snapshot during which the child might be suffering from a head-cold or sitting next to a kid who farts a lot. This system is ever-so-much better than letting educators who know children and keep track of their progress decide how they're doing. Why, that would be nutty!

Hope the Demis did exceedingly well. (And that they weren't sitting next to a kid who farts a lot.)

Tom said...

You must be the best mom ever. All I did was pour myself a bowl of cheerios.

If I had a huge breakfast before tests I'd be a friggen genious.

JeepGirl said...

I think they try to make the mothers feel bad. Honestly -
I have to hollar all morning, "eat breakfast, eat breakfast" over and over. Everyone gets too busy or lazy doing other stuff and would forget if I didn't say anything.