Helpfully Yours

Last evening Todd emerged from the school with his backpack, lunchbox and an unwieldy expanse of poster-board.
"I've got to make a poster about my favorite tree." he said when we got home, looking for a place to put it.
"Today?" I said. "Is it due tomorrow?"
"I guess." he said, with an air of phlegmatic fatalism.
"Do you have other homework?" I asked.
"Yes." he said.
"Do you have a favorite tree?" I asked.
"Uhm....." he said.

This was code language for "no". It took me all of 2 seconds to decode it.

"We" would have to develop a love for a tree. Quickly.

A cursory scan of his instruction sheet indicated that this tree had to be a particular tree, not just a certain type of tree. We couldn't, say, decide weeping willows were his favorite tree. It would have to be a particular weeping willow.

"Dogwoods are nice." I said helpfully.
"Mmm..." He seemed uninspired. "What about maples?" he suggested.

We have two maples. They are basically saplings. The one we planted last year. It is still tied to a stick to keep it going in the way it should go. The other is in a pot waiting for some other trees to be felled to make room for it. It looks a little unhealthy probably because I let it get too dry this summer.

Neither one really has the characteristics of a "Favorite Tree."

"Maples...? I said dubiously. "Think about dogwoods, Todd." I encouraged. "They have such pretty flowers  in the Spring!" I said brightly. "And in the fall they turn nice and red."

He considered this.
I could see love growing in his eyes.

"I know which one!" he said suddenly, with a delightful burst of affection. "The one at the end of the lane! Come on!"

It's a quarter of a mile to the end of the lane. He had chosen roughly the farthest tree we own.

At least it wasn't a maple.
He burst out the door and headed up through the woods on Becky's pink bike.
"I don't want to get ticks." I called after him. "I'll take the lane."

We arrived at the end of the lane and surveyed his tree.

It was a nice tree.
It had lovely red berries on it already, but the leaves were still green. The leaves were kind of mottled, it seemed, the closer you got to them. I climbed up on the bank upon which it grew to select a few specimens. The red berries would be a nice touch on the poster. I was glad there were berries. Maples don't have berries. This was a good choice on his part. He watched me contentedly from astride his bike.

Something stung my foot. I looked down. I had stepped in fire ants. Ouch.

Ouchouchouch.

Off he took triumphantly on his bike. I followed at my own pace, bearing dogwood specimens and stinging feet. Or foot.

"I have to draw a picture of it." he said, back in the livingroom. The blank piece of poster-board lay on our living room floor, dominating the diminutive space.

"Are you sure??" I said. His drawing skills are not notable.
"She SAID!" he said emphatically.
"I don't see it on the paper." I responded.
"Miss Karen SAID we have to draw a picture of it!"

"It says here you are to have PICTURES of all these things....not the real thing." I said uncertainly, reading over the list....leaves, twigs, cones, flowers. Oh well. We had actual twigs. They were going on there. They would add dimension.

I googled "dogwood". And clicked on "images for dogwood".

"Come here, Todd", I said. "Which pictures do you like? I pointed out some I thought would be nice.

He chose some pictures and we printed them off. Beautiful pictures. This was definitely the right tree for him to love. He had chosen well.

I loosely arranged the things we had so far on the poster-board.

I looked at his paper. "You are suppose to include the circumference of your tree," I said. "You'll have to measure it." Todd sagged. "I don't feel like going out to the end of the lane again." he moaned.

"Why don't you choose the dogwood at the edge of the yard?" said Becky, helpfully.

"Which one?" he asked dubiously.

"The one by the dog house!" she enthused. She liked this tree. She liked to climb it. He did too, actually.
Todd switched favorite trees and off they went with my sewing tape to measure it. 16 and a 1/2 inches.

I pondered whether it mattered that the twigs we had were no longer from his favorite tree.

Todd was reading his paper. "I'm suppose to do this all by myself." he observed.

"By yourself??" I asked. I took the paper and started reading..

"Your poster will be graded on these things", I read near the bottom  "....Neatness....Did you do it yourself without your parent's help?..."

Help. What is help exactly?
 I mean, really...

"Okay" I said. "You'll have to do it yourself." I backed away from the poster.

"There's a whole list of questions." I said. "Maybe you want to type the answers to them? Make sure you type the answers in complete sentences."

He knew nearly nothing about typing, but I figured typing would add some novelty to the project that might save him from despair as well as contribute to the "neatness" stipulation.

I retreated to my bedroom to sew.

Pretty much every time I started in on a seam and the sound of my sewing machine filled in the air, I could hear him calling "MOM!" beyond  the roar of it.

"Just wait till I get to the end of my seam!" I would holler back, pedal to the metal.

The end of my seam would come and I would rise from my sewing and go see what he wanted.

I only answered questions. Answering questions is not help. I didn't touch anything. Sometimes I did offer useful information. And then I went back to my bedroom and my sewing.

"You need an apostrophe there." I said, pointing to the apostrophe on the keyboard. But I did not push the apostrophe key.

"Is that a complete sentence? You want to write your information in complete sentences," I reminded. "'A tree' is not a complete sentence."

I did not, however, type the complete sentence.

Eventually it was his bedtime. He typed on. The questions were not all answered.
"You have just one more," I said. He was dragging ever so slightly.

He laboriously hunted and pecked.

And then he printed it off. Ctrl "P". He knew how to do that. I didn't even have to offer any useful information.

"How do you want to put it on your poster?" I asked.
He stretched a length of doublestick tape on the back of his first picture and positioned it on the poster.

"Is it straight?" I asked as unhelpfully as possible.
"Yep" he said recklessly, pulling out another length of tape.
"How are you going to attach the twigs? I asked. "Maybe you could staple them on?"

I held the twigs but he did the stapling. It was clearly a two-man job.

We stood back and surveyed the poster.
"Are you sure you had to draw a picture of the tree?" I asked presently.
"I don't know." he said limply. His eyes were starting to glaze over. "I should have done my other homework first..."

His other homework! "Just go to bed.". I said. "You can do it in the morning."

In the morning he did his other homework.

"If your teacher said you have to draw a picture of your tree you had better draw one." I said.

I decided he would probably have better results drawing from a photo rather than drawing from the tree itself. I found the camera, and an SD card. Then I ventured out in the morning sunlight and snapped a picture of his favorite tree, feeling very grateful that I didn't have to sojourn to the end of the lane to do so.

I loaded it onto the computer. "Here." I ordered "Get a piece of paper and a pencil and come copy it."

I left to comb Becky's hair. No helping. It was nearly time to leave.

When I met up with him again the tree was drawn and he was commencing to cut it out with a scissors.

"You drew that??" I said. It looked surprisingly like The Tree.
"I helped a little with the leaves." said Tyler.
"He was suppose to do it without help!" I wailed. It was time to go out the door.
"He never let go of the pencil." Tyler soothed.

Todd was plastering "his" picture to the poster.

"Do you want to straighten it up a little maybe?" I said hastily.
"Nope!" he said. "That's the way I want it." He looked at it proudly.
"Okay! Come on!"
We were almost late.

I herded the natives out the door.

Becky offered to carry his poster and held it before her as grandly as if she were bearing the King's train. It was deposited safely behind the back seat and off we went to pick up their cousins and then on to school

We were done, for better or for worse.
He was done, rather.

We pulled into their cousins' drive and loaded them up.
Do you have your poster, Chris?" asked Todd.
"No," said Chris, nonchalantly. "I left my poster in your vehicle."
Todd searched in the back and pulled out Chris' blank poster.

"It doesn't matter. Just put it back," said Chris, "It's not due till next Thursday."